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PANAMA AND THE CANAL 




EDITH H. TRACY 



CULEBRA CUT IN THE MAKING, 



PANAMA 
AND THE CANAL 

THE STORY OF ITS ACHIEVEMENT 
ITS PROBLEMS AND ITS PROSPECTS 



BY 
WILLIS J. ABBOT 

AUTHOR OF "AMERICAN MERCHANT SHIPS AND SAILORS," "THE 
STORY OP OUR NAVY FOR YOUNG AMERICANS," ETC. 



WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS 



NEW YORK 

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 
1914 



F/ 



Copyright, 1913 
By FfiANK E, Weighi 

Copyright, 1 9 14 
By Dodd, Mead and Company 



Published February, 1914 



^-y. 



>o 



'^ 



©CI.A369713 



CONTENTS 

Introduction . 5 



MCB 



CHAPTER 



I The Front Door to Panama .... 13 

II Cristobal - Colon; and the Panama 

Railroad 34 

III Three Spanish Strongholds .... 65 

IV Revolutions and the French Regime . 113 
V The United States Begins Work . . 131 

VI Making "The Dirt Fly" . . . . . 170 

VII Col. Goethals at the Throttle ... 193 

VIII Gatun Dam and Locks 207 

IX Gatun Lake and the Chagres River . 219 

X The Culebra Cut . . '. . . . . 230 

XI The City of Panama 266 

XII The Sanitation of the Zone .... 308 

XIII The Republic of Panama . . . . . 327 

XIV The Indians of Panama 350 

XV Social Life on the Canal Zone . . . 365 

XVI Labor and the Government of the Zone 387 

XVII Problems of Administration .... 405 

XVIII Diplomacy and Politics of the Canal . 429 

XIX The Closing Phases ...... 447 

V 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Culebra Cut in the Making Frontispiece 

FACING PACK 

King Street, Kingston, Jamaica 20 

Jamaicans and Their Huts 20 

Group of Market Women 20 

The Church at Chagres Village 21 

Bit of Castle of San Lorenzo 21 

Bluff at Mouth of Chagres River 21 

Water Front at Colon 36 

Toro Point Light 37 

Toro Point Breakwater 37 

Colon in 1884 50 

Roosevelt Avenue, Cristobal 50 

The New Cristobal Docks 50 

Old French Dredges Abandoned 51 

French Locomotive in the Jungle 51 

What Natiire Did to French Machinery .... 51 

A Back Street in Taboga 66 

Bit of Porto Bello 66 

Road from Panama to Balboa 67 

The Sliced-ofi Ancon Hill 67 

The Big FHl at Balboa 67 

Entrance to Porto Bello 76 

Old Custom House at Porto Bello 76 

Spanish Fort at Porto Bello ^ . 76, 

The Arched Bridge at Old Panama ....... 77 

Tower of St. Augustine, Old Panama . , . , . 77 

Ruins of Casa Reale, Old Panama 77 

Two Village Washing Places 100 

Porto Bello from Across the Bay 101 

Old French Canal at Mindl 126 

Bas Obispo in French Days 128 

Jimcture of French and American Canals , ^ » » 126, 

vii 



vui ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING PAGB 

Tivoli Hotel at Ancon 127 

The Chief Commissary at Cristobal 127 

Washington Hotel at Cristobal 127 

Steam Shovel at Work 132 

Overwhelmed by a Slide 132 

A Track Shifter 133 

Lidgerwood Unloader 133 

Dirt Spreader at Work 133 

Light House Point 150 

Light at Pacific Entrance to Canal 150 

Gatun Lock Light 150 

Showing It to the Boss 151 

Roosevelt's Guiding Hand 151 

Submarine Drills at Work 168 

Travelling Cranes in a Lock 168 

Concrete Carriers at Pedro Miguel .... . 168 

Fluviograph at Bohio 169 

Gamboa Bridge in Dry Season 169 

Gamboa Bridge in Rainy Season 169 

A Quiet Day in the Cut 180 

The Slide at Culebra 180 

Working on Four Levels 181 

Attacking a Slide 181 

Bit of Cucaracha Slide 181 

The Two Colonels, Col. Gorgas and Col. Goethals . 196 

Administration Building, Ancon 197 

Col. Goethals' House, Culebra 197 

The Official Quarters, Ancon 197 

Gatun Lake and Lock 208 

The Water at Gatun Locks 208 

Travelling Cranes at Work 208 

View Showing Pair of Locks 209 

Diagram Showing Height of Lock and Proportions of 

the Conduits 209 

The Spillway at Gatun 218 

Giant Penstocks for the Spillway 218 

Lower Entrance to Gatun Locks 219 

Diagram of Gate-operating Machinery 219 

View of Operating Machinery 219 

The Beginning of a Slide 236 



ILLUSTRATIONS ix 

— FACING PAGE 

Diagram of the Slides 236 

Mound Forced Up in Bed of Canal 236 

The Culebra Slide 237 

A Misty Morning in the Cut ........ 244 

Getting Out a Dirt Train 245 

Drills and Steam Shovels at Work 245 

The Brow of Gold Hill 256 

Railroad Overwhelmed by a Slide 257 

Dirt Trains Ready to Move 257 

A Wrecked Steam Shovel 257 

Panama Sea Wall 276 

City of Panama from Ancon Hill 276 

Panama Cathedral and Plaza 276 

Old French Administration Building 277 

Avenida Centrale, Panama 277 

The Waterside Market, Panama 277 

Views of the City Market, Panama 292 

The Flat Arch in Church of Santo Domingo . . . 293 

Santa Ana Plaza, Panama 293 

Entrance to Mount Hope Cemetery, Colon . . . 308 

Tombs in Native Cemetery, Panama 308 

Commission Cemetery, Ancon Hill 308 

French Hospital at Colon, Still in Use 309 

Fumigation Brigade, Panama 309 

An Unsanitary Alley 322 

Beginning Sanitation Work 322 

Dredge Working in a Colon Street 323 

Typical Colon Street before Paving 323 

Street after Treatment by Americans 323 

A Street in Chorrera 328 

Typical Native Huts 328 

Chagres from Across the River 328 

Interior of Native Hut with Notched Bamboo 

Stairway 329 

Typical Native Huts 329 

The President's House 340 

Mimicipal Building 340 

The National Institute 340 

The National Palace of Panama 340 

Panama from the Water Front 341 



X ILLUSTRATIONS 

PACING PAGB 

The Old Fire Reservoir 341 

Naos, Flamenco and Perigo Islands 346 

Gun at Panama Pointing to Canal Entrance . . . 346 

Labor Train at Evening 347 

Silver Employees Pay-day 347 

Banana Market at Matachin 356 

Gua3mii Indians 357 

San Bias Indian Girls 357 

Types of Indians in the Darien 362 

Burden Bearers on the Savanna 363 

A Panama Native Woman 363 

The Stocks at Chorrera 363 

Avenida Centrale near the Station 376 

Panama Pottery Venders 376 

Negro Quarters at Ancon 376 

Typical Y. M. C. A. Club 377 

Interior of a Club House 377 

Typical Screened Houses at Corozal, Empire and 

Culebra 400;-'^ 

Workman's Dining Car 401 '-^ 

Workman's Sleeping Car 401'^ 

Tourist's Sight-seeing Car 401 y 

Floating Islands in Gatun Lake 412 ' 

The Spillway at Gatun 412 -^ 

Pumping Mud to Make Gatun Dam 412 

Travelling Crane Handling Concrete 413 

Building a Concrete Monolith 413 

Concrete Carriers at Work 413 

Proportions of Some of the Canal Work .... 422 

A Blast in the Open 423 

A Submarine Blast 423 

Side Blast at Culebra 423 

Relief Map of the Canal Zone 442 

Tug Gatun Making First Passage of the Locks, 

September 26, 1913 443 

Culebra Cut, Looking North from West Bank . . 443 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



INTRODUCTION 

PANAMA. They say the word means "a place 
of many fishes", but there is some dissension 
about the exact derivation of the name of the 
now severed Isthmus. Indeed dissension, quar- 
rels, wars and massacres have been the prime char- 
acteristics of Panama for four himdred years. "A 
place of many battles" would be a more fitting sig- 
nificance for the name of this tiny spot where man 
has been doing ceaseless battle with man since 
history rose to record the conflicts. As deadly as 
the wars between men of hostile races has been the 
unceasing struggle between man and nature. 

You will get some faint idea of the toll of life 
taken in this conflict if from Cristobal you will 
drive out to the picturesque cemetery at Mount 
Hope and look upon the almost interminable vista 
of little white headstones. Each marks the last 
resting place of some poor fellow fallen in the war 
with fever, malaria and all of tropic natiu^e's fierce 
and fatal allies against all-conquering man. That 
war is never ended. The English and the Spaniards 
have laid down their arms. Cimmaroon and con- 
quistadore, pirate and buccaneer no longer steal 
stealthily along the narrow jungle trails. But let 

5 



6 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

man forget for awhile his vigilance and the rank, 
lush growth of the jungle creeps over his clearings, 
his roads, his machinery, enveloping all in morphic 
arms of vivid green, delicate and beautiful to look 
upon, but tough, stubborn and fiercely resistant 
when attacked. Poisoned spines guard the slender 
tendrils that cling so tenaciously to every vantage 
point. Insects innumerable are sheltered by the 
vegetable chevaux-de-frise and in turn protect it 
from the assaults of any human enemy. Given a 
few months to reestablish itself and the jungle, once 
subdued, presents to man again a defiant and an 
almost impenetrable front. We boast that we have 
conquered nature on the Isthmus, but we have 
merely won a truce along a comparatively narrow 
strip between the oceans. Eternal vigilance will be 
the price of safety even there. 

If that coimtry alone is happy whose history is 
uninteresting, then sorrow must have been the or- 
dained lot of Panama. Visited first by Columbus 
in 1502, at which time the great navigator put forth 
every effort to find a strait leading through to the 
East Indies, it has figured largely in the pages of 
history ever since. Considerable cities of Spanish 
foundation rose there while our own Jamestown and 
Plymouth were still unimagined. The Spaniards 
were building massive walls, erecting masonry 
churches, and paving royal roads down there in the 
jungle long before the palisades and log huts of 



INTRODUCTION 7 

Plymouth rose on the sandy shores of Cape Cod 
bay. If the ruins of the first city of Panama, 
draped with tropical vines, are all that remain of 
that once royal city, its successor founded in 1673 
still stands with parts of the original walls stur- 
dily resisting the onslaught of time. 

It appears there are certain advantages about 
geographical littleness. If Panama had been big, 
the eyes of the world would never have been fastened 
upon it. Instinctively Columbus sought, in each of 
its bays opening from the Caribbean, that strait 
which should lead to far Cathay. Seeking the same 
mythical passage Balboa there climbed a hill where 

" — with eagle eyes, 
He star'd at the Pacific — and all his men 
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise 
Silent upon a peak in Darien". 

Hope of a natural strait abandoned, the narrow- 
ness of the Isthmus made it the shortest route for 
Cortez, Pizarro and other famous Spanish robbers 
and murderers to follow in their quest for the gold 
of the Incas. As the Spaniards spoiled Peru, so the 
buccaneers and other pirates belonging to foreign 
nations, robbed and murdered the Spaniards. The 
gold fever filled the narrow Isthmus full of graves 
and of moldering bodies for which there was not 
even hasty sepulture. In time the Peruvian hoards 
were exhausted, Spaniards and Englishmen, bucca- 



8 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

neers and pirates vanished. Then came a new in- 
vasion — this time by a nation imknown in the days 
of the Great Trade and the Royal Road. Gold had 
been discovered in California, and now troops of 
Americans fought their way through the jungle, and 
breasted the rapids of the Chagres River. They 
sought gold as had Pizarro and Cortez, but they 
sought it with spade and pan, not with sword and 
musket. In their wake came the Panama Railroad, 
a true pioneer of international trade. Then sprung 
up once more the demand for the waterway across 
the neck which Columbus had sought in vain. 

The story of the inception and completion of the 
Canal is the truly great chapter in the history of 
Panama. Not all the gold from poor Peru that 
Pizarro sent across the Isthmus to fatten the coffers 
of kings or to awaken the cupidity and cimning of 
the buccaneers equals what the United States alone 
has expended to give to the trade of the world the 
highway so long and so fruitlessly sought. An act 
of unselfish bounty, freely given to all the peoples 
of the earth, comes to obliterate at last the long 
record of international perfidy, piracy and plunder 
which is the history of Panama. 

This book is being written in the last days of con- 
structive work on the Panama Canal. The tens of 
thousands of workmen, the hundreds of officers are 
preparing to scatter to their homes in all parts of 
the world. The pleasant and hospitable society of 



INTRODUCTION 9 

the Zone of which I have written is breaking up. 
Villages are being abandoned, and the water of 
Gatun Lake is silently creeping up and the green 
advance guard of the jimgle swiftly stealing over 
the forsaken ground. While this book is yet new 
much that I have written of as part of the pro- 
gram of the future will indeed have become part 
of the record of the past. 

I think that anyone who visited the Canal Zone 
during the latter years of construction work will 
have carried away with him a very pleasant and 
Hvely recollection of a social life and hospitality 
that was quite ideal. The official centers at Culebra 
and Ancon, the quarters of the army at Camp Otis 
and the navy and marine corps at Camp Elliott were 
ever ready to entertain the visitor from the states, 
and his enjoyment was necessarily tinged with 
regret that the charming homes thrown open to him 
were but ephemeral, and that the passage of the 
first ship through the Canal would mark the begin- 
ning of their dismantHng and abandonment. The 
practiced traveler in every clime will find this 
eagerness of those who hold national outposts, 
whether ovus in the Philippines, or the British in 
India and Hong Kong, to extend the glad hand of wel- 
come to one from home, but nowhere have I found 
it so thoroughly the custom as on the Canal 
Zone. No American need fear loneliness who goes 
there. 



10 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

In the chapter on "Social Life on the Canal Zone" 
I have tried to depict this colonial existence, so 
different from the life of the same people when in 
"the states" and yet so full of a certain "homi- 
ness" after all. It does not seem to me that we 
Americans cling to our home customs when on 
foreign stations quite so tenaciously as do the 
British — though I observed that the Americans on 
the Zone played baseball quite as religiously as the 
British played cricket. Perhaps we are less tena- 
cious of afternoon tea than they, but women's clubs 
flourish on the Zone as they do in Kansas, while as 
for bridge it proceeds as uninterruptedly as the 
flow of the dirt out of the Culebra Cut. 

Nobody could return from the Zone without a 
desire to express thanks for the hospitalities shown 
him and the author is fortunate in possessing the 
opportunity to do so publicly. Particularly do I 
wish to acknowledge indebtedness or aid in the 
preparation of this book to Col. George W. 
Goethals, Chairman and Engineer-in-Chief, and 
to Col. W. C. Gorgas, Commissioner and Chief Sani- 
tary Officer. It goes without saying that without 
the friendly aid and cooperation of Col. Goethals 
no adequate description of the Canal work and the 
life of the workers could ever be written. To the 
then Secretary of War, Hon. Henry L. Stimson, 
under whose able administration of the Department 
of War much of the Canal progress noted in this 



INTRODUCTION ii 

book was made, the author is indebted for personal 
and official introductions, and to Hon. John Bar- 
rett, one time United States Minister to Colombia 
and now Director General of the Pan-American 
Union, much is owed for advice and suggestion from 
a mind richly stored with Latin-American facts. 

On the Canal Zone Hon. Joseph B. Bishop, Secre- 
tary of the Isthmian Canal Commission, Hon. 
Maurice H. Thatcher, Civil Governor, and Mr. H. 
H. Rousseau, the naval member of the Commission, 
were particularly helpful. Thanks are cordially 
extended to Prof. F. A. Gause, the superintendent of 
schools, who has built up on the Canal Zone an educa- 
tional system that cannot fail to affect favorably the 
schools of the surrounding Republic of Panama; to 
Mr. Walter J. Beyer, the engineer in charge of light- 
house construction, and to Mr. A. B. Dickson who, 
by his active and devoted work in the development 
of the Y. M. C. A. clubs on the Zone, has created a 
feature of its social life which is absolutely indispen- 
sable. 

The illustration of a book of this nature would 
be far from complete were the work of professional 
photographers alone relied upon. Of the many 
amateurs who have kindly contributed to its pages 
I wish to thank Prof. H. Pittier of the Department 
of Agricultiire, Prof. Otto Lutz, Department of 
Natural Science, Panama National Institute; Mr. 
W. Ryall Burtis, of Freehold, N. J.; Mr. Stewart 



12 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

Hancock Elliott, of Norwalk, Conn.; Mr. A. W. 
French, and Dr. A. J. Orenstein of the Department 
of Sanitation. 

The opening of the Panama Canal does not merely 
portend a new era in trade, or the end of the epoch 
of trial and struggle on the Isthmus. It has a 
finality such as have few of the great works of man. 
Nowhere on this globe are there left two continents 
to be severed; two oceans to be united. Canals are 
yet to be dug, arms of the sea brought together. 
We may yet see inland channels from Boston to 
Galveston, and from Chicago to New York nav- 
igable by large steamships. But the imion of the 
Mediterranean and the Red S a at Suez and the 
Atlantic and Pacific at Panama stand as man'a 
crowning achievements in remodeling '^od's world. 
As Ambassador James Bryce, s]_eakin'' of the Pan- 
ama Canal, put it, "It is the great :st liberty Man 
has ever taken with Nature". 




CHAPTER I 

THE FRONT DOOR TO PANAMA 

^HE gray sun of a bitter February day was 
sinldng in a swirling sea as the ship doggedly 
plowed its way southward along the New 
Jersey coast. One after another the beacons that 
guard that perilous strip of sand twinkled out, 
and one after another voyagers unused to ocean's 
stormiest moods silently disappeared into secretive 
cabins. "It may be a stern and rockbound coast", 
said one lady with poetic reminiscence, "but I wish 
I was on it"! For it must be set down as a melan- 
choly truth that the voyage from New York to 
Colon is as a rule tempestuous. 

Most who seek the Canal Zone as mere sight- 
seers will choose winter for the trip, at which time 
wintry gales are the rule as far south as the Bahamas 
— after which the long smooth rollers of the trop- 
ical ocean will sufficiently try the unaccustomed 
stomach, even though the breezes which accompany 
them be as mild as those of Araby the blest. In 
brief, to reach in winter our newest possession you 
must brave the ordinary discomforts of a rough voy- 
age, and three days of biting cold weather as well, im- 

13 



14 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

less you sail from New Orleans, or the terminus of 
Mr. Flagler's new over-sea railroad at Key West. 

Despite its isthmian character, the Canal Zone, 
Uncle Sam's most southerly outpost, may be called 
an island, for the travelers' purpose. True it is bor- 
dered on but two sides by water, and thus far vio- 
lates the definition of an island. But it is only to 
be reached by water. The other two sides are walled 
in by the tangled jungle where vegetation grows so 
rank and lush that animal life is stunted and beaten 
in the struggle for existence by the towering palms, 
clustering ferns and creeping vines. Only things 
that crawl on their bellies, like the serpent accursed 
in Eden, grow to their fullest estate in this network 
of rustling green. Lions there are, by the talk of 
the natives at least, but when you encounter them 
they turn out to be mere stunted specimens of our 
northern wild cat. The deer, rarely met, are dwarfed/ 
but are the largest animals to be found in the jungle, 
though one hears reports of giant boas. Indeed the 
remnants of the age of reptiles are large to our eyes, 
though puny in comparison with the giants that 
scientists christened, long centuries after they were 
extinct and unable to protest, with such names as 
ichthyosaurus. You will still find lizards or iguana, 
three to five feet long, if your search of the jungle 
be thorough. The tapir, or anteater, too, grows to 
huge size. But it is not dread of wild animals that 
keeps man from penetrating the jungle. The swift 



THE FRONT DOOR TO PANAMA 15 

growing and impenetrable vegetation blocks the 
paths as fast as cut, and he who would seek the 
Canal Zone must follow the oldest of highways, the 
sea. 

If New York be the port of departure, several 
lines offer themselves to the traveler and soon 
after the Canal is opened their number will be in- 
creased. At present the Panama Railroad Company, 
owned by the government, maintains a line of ships 
mainly for the carriage of supplies and employees of 
the Canal Commission. There is already discussion 
of the wisdom of abandoning this line after the con- 
struction work is over, on the ground that the 
United States government has no right to enter into 
the business of water transportation in competition 
with private parties. If sold by the government, 
however, the line will doubtless be maintained under 
private ownership. The United Fruit Company, an 
American corporation with an impressive fleet of 
ships all flying the British flag, also carries passengers 
to the Isthmus from New York and New Orleans, 
as does the Hamburg- American Line, from New 
York only. My own voyage was by the Royal Mail 
Steam Packet line, an historic organization chartered 
in 1839 for the express purpose of bringing England 
into closer touch with its West Indian colonies. 
The excellent ships of this line, sailing fortnightly 
from New York, touch at the little port of Antilla 
on the northern shore of Cuba, spend twenty-four 



16 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

hours at Jamaica and reach Colon on the eighth day 
of the voyage. Thence the ship plows along through 
our American Mediterranean, touching at Trinidad, 
St. Kitts, Barbadoes and other British colonial out- 
posts until at last she turns into the open ocean, 
buffeting her way eastward to Gibraltar and South- 
ampton, her home port. 

A real bit of England afloat is the "Oruba" with 
ofhcers clad on festive occasions in full-dress uni- 
forms closely resembling those of the Royal Navy, 
and stewards who never dropped dishes in a storm 
but dropped their h's on the slightest provocation. 
" 'E's in the 'old, mum", explained one when a lady 
inquired for the whereabouts of a missing dog. It 
is wonderful after all how persistent are the British 
manners and customs in the places the English 
frequent. From the breakfast tea, bloaters and 
marmalade, to the fish knives sensibly served with 
that course at dinner, but which finiclcy Americans 
abjure, all about the table on these ships is typically 
English. In the colonies you find drivers all turning 
to the left, things are done "directly" and not 
"right away", every villa has its tennis court, and 
Piccadilly, Bond St., and Regent Street are never 
missing from the smallest colonial towns. 

But to return to the voyage. For four days we 
steamed south along a course as straight as though 
drawn by a ruler. For three days the wind blew 
bitter and cutting, the seas buffeted the weather 



THE FRONT DOOR TO PANAMA 17 

side of the ship with resoiinding blows, and the big 
dining saloon displayed a beggarly array of empty 
seats. Betwixt us and Africa was nothing but a 
clear course for wind and wave, and both seemed 
to suffer from speed mania. Strange noises rose 
from the cabins; stewardesses looked business-like 
and all-compelling as they glided along the narrow 
corridors. Hardened men in the smoke room kept 
their spirits up by pouring spirits down, and agreed 
that the first leg of a voyage to Colon was always a 
beastly one. 

But by the morning of the fourth day a change 
comes over the spirit of our dreams. The wind 
still blows, but it is soft, tempered to the shorn 
lamb. The ship still rolls, but the mysterious organ 
called the stomach has become attuned to the mo- 
tion and ladies begin to reappear on the deck. The 
deck chairs so blithely rented at New York are no 
longer untenanted, and we cease to look upon the 
deck steward who took our money as a confidence 
man. A glance at the chart at noon shows us off 
the northern coast of Florida, and the deep blue of 
the water betokens the Gulf Stream. Next morning 
men begin to don their white suits, and the sailors 
wander about barefooted. A bright girl suggests 
that a voyage from New York to the tropics is like 
a shower bath taken backward, and we all are glad 
that the warm water faucet is at last tiimed on. 

The first land we sight after the Jersey coast 



i8 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

has faded away is Watling Island, in the Baha- 
mas. Everybody looks at it eagerly — a long, 
low-lying coast with a slender lighthouse, a 
fishing village and the wreck of a square-rigged 
vessel plainly visible — for this is believed to be the 
first land sighted by Columbus. Of that there is 
some debate, but there is always debate on ship- 
board and any event that will furnish a topic is 
welcome. Everything about the ship now has 
turned tropical. The shady deck becomes popular, 
and the 240 pound ship's doctor in immaculate 
white linen with the cutest little shell jacket after 
the Royal Navy pattern becomes a subject for 
wonder and admiration. 

Antilla, the first stopping place on the way south, 
is a cluster of houses on a spacious bay on the 
northern side of Cuba, connected with Santiago and 
Havana. Doubtless some day it may become a 
notable shipping point, and indeed the shores of the 
bay are dotted with great s.ugar houses and carpeted 
with fields of shimmering green cane. But today 
only a lighter load of timber and a few tropical 
products are shipped — that is if we except a bunch 
of tourists who have come this far on the way to 
Colon by rail and the short sea trip from Florida 
to Cuba. Most of them were in doubt whether 
they had improved upon the discomfort of four 
rough days at sea by electing twenty-four hours of 
rough riding on the Cuban railway instead. 



THE FRONT DOOR TO PANAMA 19 

Past the quarantine station which, with its red- 
topped hospital, looks like a seashore resort, we 
glide, and the boat's prow is again turned south- 
ward. Jamaica, our next port of call, is thirty-six 
hours away, and at last we have placid blue water 
from which the flying fish break in little clouds, and 
a breeze suggestive of the isles of spice. The ship's 
company which two days back was largely content 
with cots, and the innumerable worthless remedies 
for seasickness, always recommended by people who 
don't get sick, now pines for exercise and entertain- 
ment. Young men, normally sane, bestride an hori- 
zontal boom and belabor each other with pillows 
until one or both fall to the hospitable mattress 
below. Other youths, greatly encouraged by the 
plaudits of fair ones, permit themselves to be 
trussed up like fowls exposed for sale, and, with 
ungainly hops and lurches, bimt into each other 
until one is toppled to the deck. The human cock- 
fight brings loud applause which attains its apogee 
when some spectator at the critical moment with a 
shrill cock-a-doodle-doo displays an egg. A ship in 
the tropics is the truest of playgrounds. We are 
beginning to feel the content of just living which 
characterizes the native of the tropics. Indeed, when 
the deck is cleared and waxed, and the weather cloths 
and colored lights brought forth for the ball, most 
of the men who left New York full of energy find 
themselves too languid to participate, I don't know 



20 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

whether the Royal Mail exacts of its officers an 
aptitude for the dance, but their trim white uniforms 
were always much in evidence when the two-step 
was in progress. 

Early on the second day out from Cuba a heavy 
gray mass showed clear on the horizon to the south- 
west. It is reported by the historians that when 
Queen Isabella once asked Columbus what Jamaica 
looked like he crumpled up a sheet of stiff paper in 
his palm, then partly smoothing it displayed it to 
the Queen. The illustration was apt. Nowhere does 
a more crinkly island rise from the sea. Up to a 
height of 7000 feet and more the mountains rise 
sheer from the sea with only here and there the 
narrowest strip of white beach at the base. For the 
most part the tropical foliage comes unthinned down 
to the water. In early mom the crests of the hills 
are draped with clouds, and from the valleys be- 
twixt them masses of white mist come rolling out 
as the rays of the sun heat the atmosphere. For 
forty miles or so you steam along this coast with 
scarce an acre of level land between the mountains 
and the deep until in the distance you descry the 
hollow in which Kingston lies embedded. A low l^'ing 
sand bar runs parallel to the shore and perhaps a 
mile out, forming the barrier for the harbor which is 
indeed a noble bay well fit to shelter navies. But 
the barrier, though but a few feet above high water 
now, is sinking gradually, and the future of King- 




I. KING STREET, KINGSTON, JAMAICA. 2. JAMAICANS AND THEIR 
HUTS. 3. GROUP OF MARKET WOMEN 




;. Tllli CHI RCH AT CHAGRES VILLAGE. 2. BIT OF CASTLE OF SAN 
LORENZO. 3. BLUFF AT MOUTH OF CHAGRES RIVER 



THE FRONT DOOR TO PANAMA 21 

ston's harbor is somewhat distressing. Once this 
low sandbar bore the most riotous and wicked town 
of history, for here stood Port Royal to which 
flocked the pirates and buccaneers of the Spanish 
Main, with their booty — doubloons, pieces of eight, 
beauteous Spanish senoritas and all the other at- 
tractive plunder with which the dime novels of our 
youth made us familiar. A right merry spot was 
Port Royal in those days and a pistol bullet or a 
swift stab in the back, though common enough, 
only halted the merriment for one man at a time. 
But fire purged Port Royal, and the pleasant pursuit 
of piracy began to fall into disrepute. Instead of 
treating the gallants who sailed under the Jolly 
Roger as gentlemen adventurers, civilized govern- 
ments began to hang them — England being the last 
to countenance them in making Henry Morgan, 
wildest of the reckless lot, a baronet and appointed 
him governor of Jamaica. Now Port Royal has 
shrunken to a fishing village, bordering upon the 
abandoned British naval station at the very har- 
bor's mouth. 

One sees there the emplacements for gims, but no 
guns; the barracks for marines, but no men. Even 
the flagstaff rises dismally destitute of bunting. No 
sign of military or naval life appears about the 
harbor. The first time I visited it a small British 
gunboat about the size of our "Dolphin" dropped 
anchor and sent four boatloads of jackies ashore 



22 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

for a frolic, but on my second visit the new Gover- 
nor of the colony arrived on a Royal Mail ship, 
unescorted by any armed vessel, and was received 
without military pomp or the thunder of 
cannon. 

The fact of the matter is that the ties uniting 
Jamaica to the mother country are of the very 
slenderest, and there are not lacking Jamaicans who 
would welcome a change in allegiance to the United 
States. The greatest product of the island is sugar. 
Our tariff policy denies it entrance to our market, 
though as I write Congress is debating a lower tariff. 
The British policy of a "free breakfast table" gives 
it no advantage in the English markets over the 
bounty-fed sugar of Germany. Hence the island 
is today in a state of commercial depression almost 
mortuary. An appeal to Canada resulted in that 
country giving in its tariff a 20 per cent advantage 
to the sugar and fruit of the British West Indies. 
Thus far, however, Jamaica has refused this half a 
loaf, wishing the preferential limited to her products 
alone. 

Meanwhile English writers of authority are openly 
discussing the likelihood of Jamaica reverting to 
the United States. In its South American supple- 
ment the London Times said in 191 1, speaking of 
the United States: "Its supremacy in the Gulf of 
Mexico and in the Caribbean Sea is today prac- 
tically undisputed; there can be little doubt, there- 



THE FRONT DOOR TO PANAMA 23 

fore, that the islands of the West Indies and the 
outlying units of Spanish America will, upon the 
completion of the Panama Canal, gravitate in due 
course to amalgamation with the Great Republic 
of the North". And Mr. Archibald Colquhoun, an 
authoritative writer on British West Indian policy, 
said about the same time: " It is certain that Jamaica, 
and other West Indian Islands, in view of the local 
geographical and economic conditions — and espe- 
cially in view of the change which will be wrought 
in those conditions by the opening of the Panama 
Canal — must sooner or later decide between Canada 
and the United States". 

This situation may lead the Imperial Govern- 
ment to throw Jamaica a sop in the shape of heavy 
expenditures for fortifications, a large resident gar- 
rison and a permanent naval station. But it is 
unlikely. If Kingston is within easy striking dis- 
tance of the Canal, it is within easier striking distance 
of our powerful naval base at Guantanamo. The 
monopoly of striking is not conferred on any one 
power, and the advantage of striking first would be 
open to either. 

Not impressive as viewed from the water, the 
town is even less so when considered in the intimacy 
of its streets. An air of gray melancholy pervades it 
all. In 1907 an earthquake rent the town into frag- 
ments, and the work of rebuilding is but begun. 
Ruins confront you on every hand, the ruins of edi- 



24 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

fices that in their prime could have been nothing 
but commonplace, and in this day of their disaster 
have none of the dignity which we like to discover 
in mute memorials of a vanished past. Over all 
broods a dull, drab mantle of dust. The glorious 
trees, unexcelled in variety and vigor, have their 
richly varying hues dulled by the dust, so that you 
may not know how superb indeed is the coloring 
of leaf and flower except after one of the short sharp 
tropical rains that washes away the pall and sets 
the gutters roaring with a chocolate colored flood. 

Making due allowance for the tropical vegetation 
and the multitudinous negro, there is much that is 
characteristically English about Kingston. The 
houses of the better class of people, however fragile 
in construction, stand somewhat back from the 
street, guarded by ponderous brick walls in order 
that the theory "every Englishman's house is his 
castle" may be literally maintained. And each 
house has its name painted conspicuously on its gate 
posts. The names are emphatically English and 
their grandeur bears no apparent relation to the 
size of the edifice. Sometimes they reach into lit- 
erature. I saw one six -room cottage labeled "Bir- 
namwood", but looked in vain about the neighbor- 
hood for Dunsinane. 

The town boasts a race course, and the triple pil- 
lars of English social life, cricket, lawn tennis and 
afternoon tea, are much in evidence. The Governor 



THE FRONT DOOR TO PANAMA 25 

is always an Englishman and his home government, 
which never does things by halves, furnishes him 
with a stately official residence and a salary of 
£5000 a year. The Episcopal Archbishop of the 
West Indies resident there is an Englishman. But 
most of the heads of official departments are Ja- 
maicans, which is quite as it should be, for out of 
the 850,000 people in the island only about 1660, 
according to the census of 191 1, were born in Eng- 
land, Scotland or Ireland. Furthermore the number 
of "men from home" is relatively decreasing, al- 
though their influence is still potent. Even the na- 
tive Jamaican of the more cultivated class speaks 
of England as home, and as a rule he spends his 
holidays there. Yet the keenest observers declare 
that the individual Englishman in Jamaica always 
remains much of a stranger to the native people. 
He is not as adaptable even as the American, and 
it is asserted that American influence in the island 
grows even as British domination is weakened. 

One home feature which the English have im- 
pressed upon the islands is good roads. The high- 
ways leading from Kingston up into the hills and 
across the island to Port Antonio and other places 
are models of road making. They are of the highest 
economic value, too,, for in marketing farm products 
the one railroad is but little used. Nearly every- 
thing is brought from farm to market on the heads 
of the striding women, or in straw panniers slung 



26 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

over the backs of patient donkeys. Amazing are the 
loads these two patient beasts of burden — biped and 
quadruped — bear. Once in a while a yoke of oxen, 
or a one-horse cart is seen, but in the main the 
woman or the donkey furnishes transportation. To 
the Jamaican there is nothing wrong with the 
verbiage of the Tenth Commandment to which our 
progressive women take violent exception. To him 
there is nothing anomalous in lumping in his or his 
neighbor's wife with "his ox or his ass". So the 
coimtry roads on a market day are an unending 
panorama of human life, of women plodding to 
market — often a two days' journey — with a long 
swinging stride, burden firmly poised on head, or 
returning with smaller loads gossiping and laughing 
with much gleaming of white teeth as the stranger 
passes. The roads are a paradise for automobilists — 
smooth, of gentle grade, with easy curves and wind- 
ing through the most beautiful scenery of tropic 
hillsides and rushing waters. Only the all-pervading 
dust mars the motorists' pleasure. 

If the air is dusty, the prevailing complexion is 
dusky. For in this island of about 850,000 people 
only about 15,000 are listed in the census as "white", 
and the whiteness of a good many of these is ad- 
mittedly tarnished by a "touch of the tarbrush". 
As in every country in which any social relations 
between the races are not remorselessly tabooed — as 
it is in our southern states — the number of "colored " 



THE FRONT DOOR TO PANAMA 27 

people increases more rapidly than that of either 
black or white. There were in 1834, i5>ooo whites 
out of the population of 371,000; there are today 
15,605, but the blacks and mongrels have increased 
to more than 800,000. The gradations in color in 
any street group run from the very palest yellow 
to the blackest of Congo black. That is hardly the 
sort of population which the United States desires 
to take to its bosom. 

The Jamaica negro is a natural loafer. Of course 
he works when he must, but betwixt the mild climate, 
the kindly fruits of the earth and the industry of his 
wife or wives, that dire necessity is seldom forced 
upon him. My first glimpse of industrial conditions 
in Jamaica was taken from the deck of a ship warp- 
ing into dock at Kingston. Another ship, lying at 
the same dock, was being coaled. Down and up the 
1000 feet or so of dock tramped long files of inde- 
scribably ragged, black and dirty figures. Those 
going down bore on their heads baskets piled high 
with coal, going back they bore the baskets empty. 
Of the marching figures fully two-thirds were 
women. With tattered skirts tucked up to the 
knees and the merest semblance of waists, barefooted, 
they plodded along. The baskets carried about 65 
pounds of coal each, and for taking one from the 
pile and emptying it into the ship's bunkers these 
women received half a cent. There was no merri- 
ment about the work, no singing as among our 



28 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

negro roustabouts on the Mississippi. Silently with 
shoulders squared, hands swinging in rhythm and 
basket poised firmly on the head the women strode 
along, working thus for perhaps eight or nine hours 
and then flocldng home chatting noisily as they 
darkened the streets and forced the white-clad 
tourists to shrink aside from grimy contact. On 
the country roads you find lines of women carrying 
frmt and vegetables to market, but seldom a man. 
Yet thus far that weaker sex has not developed a 
suffragette, although they support the colony. 

There is much head work in Jamaica, even if 
there be little brain work. The negroes carry every- 
thing on their heads. The only hat I saw on a man's 
kinky poll was an old derby, reversed, filled with 
yams and thus borne steadily along. A negro given 
a letter to deliver will usually seek a stone to weight 
it down, deposit it thus ballasted amidst his wool 
and do the errand. In Panama an engineer told 
me of ordering a group of Jamaicans to load a wheel- 
barrow with stones and take it to a certain spot. 

"Would you believe it", he said, "when they 
had filled that wheel-barrow, two of the niggers 
lifted it to their companion's head, balanced it and 
he walked off with it as contented as you please". 

The huts in which the negroes live are as a rule 
inconceivably small. They are just a trifle larger 
than a billiard table, built of wattled cane, and plas- 
tered over with clay. The roof is usually a thatch 



THE FRONT DOOR TO PANAMA 29 

of palm branches, though sometimes ragged strips 
of corrugated iron are employed with much less ar- 
tistic effect. In what corresponds to our tene- 
ments, the rooming places of day laborers, the yard 
rather than the house is the unit. So you will see 
on a tiny shack about the size of a playhouse for 
children the sign, "Rooms for Rent," which applies 
not to the pigmy edifice bearing it, but to the 
cluster of huts set down helter skelter in the yard. 
The people sleep in the huts, incidentally barring 
them so far as the flimsy construction permits 
against any possible entrance of fresh air. All the 
other activities of life are conducted in the open — 
cooking, eating, sewing, gossiping. A yard is the 
most social place imaginable, and the system not 
only contributes to health by keeping people in the 
open air, adds to the gayety of life by grouping so 
many black families in one corral, reduces the high 
cost of living as our model tenements never can 
hope to, but makes one black landlord independent, 
for the possession of a yard with its rooms all rented 
leaves nothing needed . for enjoyment except a 
phonograph and an ample supply of the rum for 
which the island is famous. 

Racially the Jamaica peasant is a negro, with vary- 
ing admixtures of white blood. The mongrel breed is 
steadily increasing and the pure white population 
relatively decreasing. Economically the peasant is 
either a day laborer or a servant, and as 40,000 are 



30 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

classed as servants in a population where the em- 
ploying class is limited, it follows that employers keep 
many servants and the supply always exceeds the 
demand. Children come rapidly to the Jamaicans. 
Marriage is easy and to dispense with it easier still, 
so that 62 per cent of the births are illegitimate. 
"My people are very religious", said a mission- 
ary proudly, "but, dear me, how immoral they are" ! 

When girls are about twelve years old the mothers, 
tired of supporting them, for that task is seldom 
assumed by the fathers, take them to town on the 
first market day. The little produce being sold, the 
pair proceed from house to house seeking some 
"kine missus" who will take a school girl. In the 
end the child becomes the property of whoever will 
clothe, feed and shelter her. Pay is not expected, 
though when she grows helpful she is sometimes 
given an occasional gift of silver. The rights of the 
mistress are patriarchal, and whether or not she 
spoils the child the rod is seldom spared. When she 
gets to be seventeen or so the girl suddenly dis- 
appears in the night, with a bundle of her clothing. 
The inevitable man has crossed her path and she 
has gone to be his companion and slave. 

When you think of it there is not much economic 
change in her situation. She worked for her mis- 
tress for nothing — she does the same for her hus- 
band, or more commonly for her "friend". He may 
work spasmodically for her when the need of actual 



THE FRONT DOOR TO PANAMA 31 

money compels, but as a rule she is the wage earner. 
Always she tends the little garden and takes its 
slender produce to market. Sometimes she joins 
the coal-bearing Amazons down at the steamship 
docks. Often she goes back to the family which 
brought her up and offers her services anew — this 
time for a wage. Every house has two or three 
boxes a few feet away serving for servants' quarters, 
but a girl of this type will decline these, renting 
instead a shack in a "yard", taking there daily the 
materials for her dinner, usually provided by her 
mistress. At its door, in a brazier, or a tiny stove, 
she will cook the meal for the idle "husband" and 
the children who arrive with mechanical regularity. 
After supper there is the gossip of the dozen or more 
women in the yard. 

The rebuilding of Kingston, compelled by the 
earthquake, is proceeding apace. The town will 
lose much in quaintness, one can see that by the 
ruins of some of the older structures in which 
stately colonial outlines can be traced. But it 
will gain in adaptation to the climate and the ever- 
present earthquake menace. The main business 
street — King Street, of course, being a British 
colony — is lined on either side with arcaded con- 
crete buildings of a imiform type. Ceilings are high, 
windows large and one may walk the three long 
blocks of the busiest business section without 
emerging from the shady arcades. The government 



32 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

buildings, occupying two full squares and setting 
well back from the street, are of a type that suggests 
the streets of India, and are also of reinforced 
concrete. It is the belief of the authorities that the 
comparative lightness of this material coupled with 
its resistant powers will enable it to survive any 
earthquake. The whole period of the shock of 1907 
barely exceeded ten seconds, but its wreckage will 
not be repaired in ten years. 

The cargo that we have taken on from the spice- 
scented dock is technically called a "cargo of black 
ivory", made up of negroes sailing for Colon to 
work on the "big job". Good-natured, grinning 
negroes these, though I have heard that on the 
smaller ships that carry them by hundreds for the 
500 miles for five dollars each, they sometimes riot 
and make trouble. With us they were inoffensive, 
though it is perhaps as well that the passenger 
quarters are to windward of them. The religious 
sentiment is strong upon them and as the sun goes 
down in the waste of waters the wail of hymn tunes 
sung to the accompaniment of a fiddle and divers 
mouth organs rises over the whistle of the wind and 
the rumble of the machinery. One can but reflect 
that ten years ago, before the coming of Col. Gorgas 
and his sanitation system, three out of five of these 
happy, cheerful blacks would never return alive 
from the Canal Zone. Today they invite no more 
risk than a business man in Chicago going to his 



THE FRONT DOOR TO PANAMA 33 

office, and when their service is ended the United 
States government is obHgated to return them to 
Jamaica where for a time their money will make 
them the idols of the markets, lanes and yards. 
They might go back as veritable capitalists if they 
chose, for pay on the Isthmus is high, expenses 
light and a very small sum of money invested in a 
Jamaica yard would make the fortunate landlord 
independent for life. But the temptation of ostenta- 
tion and luxury usually overcomes the returning 
adventurers on beholding their native town. There 
is a charm and delight to the Jamaica negro about 
donning showy clothes, and driving about town in 
one of the local hacks which he seldom has the 
force of character to resist. The proceeds of his 
industry are dissipated as swiftly, though perhaps 
not as riotously in Kingston, as was the Panama 
booty of the buccaneers in Port Royal, just across 
the bay. 



CHAPTER II 

CRISTOBAL-COLON; AND THE PANAMA 
RAILROAD 

COLON is the most considerable town on the 
Caribbean Coast north and west of Cartagena. 
It is in fact two towns, the older one which is 
still subject to the jurisdiction of the Republic of 
Panama and which is properly called Colon ; and the 
new or American town which is in the Canal Zone 
and is called Cristobal. The two are separated 
only by an imaginary line, though if you want to 
mail a letter in Colon you must use a Panama 
stamp, while if you get into trouble — civil or crim- 
inal — in that camp of banditti you will have meted 
out to you the particular form of justice which 
Panamanian judges keep expressly for unlucky 
Gringoes who fall into their clutches. The com- 
bined towns are called Cristobal-Colon, or in our 
vernacular, Christopher Columbus. The name is 
half French, half Spanish, and the town is a medley 
of all nations. For half a century there has been 
trouble of various sorts about the name of the spot — 
which is a sort of caldron of trouble any way. 
The United States wanted to call the port Aspinwall, 
after the principal promoter of the Panama Railroad 

34 



CRISTOBAL-COLON 35 

hich has its terminus there, but Colombia, which 
at that time controlled the Isthmus, insisted on the 
name Colon, and finally enforced its contention by 
refusing to receive at its post office letters addressed 
to "Aspinwall". This vigorous action was effective 
and the United States postal authorities were 
obliged to notify users of the mails that there was 
no longer any such place on the world's map as 
Aspinwall. 

The dignity of our outraged nation had to be 
maintained, however, and when, a little later, the 
commission of our Consul at Colon expired the 
State Department refused to replace him because 
it ignored the existence of such a place as Colon, 
while Colombia would not admit the existence of 
an Aspinwall within its borders. Thus for some 
time a good democrat was kept out of a job — it 
was the period of democratic ascendancy. Perhaps 
it was pressure for this job that led our government 
to yield. When the French began digging the Canal 
they chose Limon Bay, the inlet on which Colon 
stands, as its Atlantic terminus and established a 
town of their own which they called Cristobal, 
being the French form of Christopher. Hence 
Cristobal-Colon, the official name which appears 
on all accurate maps of the present day. 

It is one of the traditions of the town that a 
tramp steamer, commanded by a German, came 
plowing in from the sea one morning and, passing 



36 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

without attention the docks of Colon, went gaily 
on up Limon Bay until she ran smack into the land. 
Being jeered at for his unusual method of naviga- 
tion the captain produced his charts. "That town 
is Colon? No? Is it not so? Veil dere are two 
towns. My port is Colon. Cristobal comes first. 
I pass it. I go on to Colon and, by thunder, dere is 
no Colon! Nothing but mud". It is recorded that 
the skipper's explanation was accepted and that he 
was acquitted of wilfully casting away his vessel. 
We reach Colon, where lie the docks of the Royal 
Mail, in the early morning. To the right as we steam 
into Limon Bay is the long breakwater of Toro 
Point extending three miles into the Caribbean, 
the very first Atlantic outpost of the Canal. For 
it was necessary to create here a largely artificial 
harbor, as Limon Bay affords no safe anchorage 
when the fierce northers sweep down along the 
coast. In the early days of Colon, when it was the 
starting point of the gold seekers' trail to Panama, 
ships in its harbor were compelled to cut and rim 
for the safer, though now abandoned, harbor of 
Porto Bello some twenty miles down the coast. 
That condition the great breakwater corrects. 
From the ship one sees a line of low hills forming 
the horizon with no break or indentation to suggest 
that here man is cutting the narrow gate between 
the oceans for the commerce of the nations to pass. 
The town at a distance is not unprepossessing. 



'I'ir-a 



'iiS ! 



•'-■ik 






I. TORO POINT LIGHT. 2. TORO POINT BREAKWATER 



CRISTOBAL-COLON 37 

White houses with red roofs cluster together on a 
flat island scarcely above the water, and along the 
sea front lines of cocoanut palms bend before the 
breeze. No other tree seems so fitly to blend with 
a white beach and blue sea as this palm. Its natural 
curves are graceful and characteristic and in a stiff 
breeze it bows and sways and rustles with a grace 
and a music all its own. 

But the picturesqueness of Colon does not long 
survive a closer approach. The white houses are 
seen to be mere frame buildings of the lightest 
construction which along the sea front stand out 
over the water on stilts. No building of any dis- 
tinction meets the eye, unless it be the new Wash- 
ington Hotel, a good bit of Moorish architecture, 
owned and conducted by the Panama Railroad, 
which in turn is owned by the United States. The 
activities of Uncle Sam as a hotel keeper on the 
Isthmus will be worth further attention. 

As we warp into the dock we observe that Colon 
is a seaport of some importance already. The day 
I reached there last I counted six British, two 
German, one French and three American steam- 
ships. The preponderance of British flags was the 
first thing to catch the eye, and somehow the feeling 
that, except for the Royal Mail ship, all the vessels 
over which they were waving were owned by 
American capital did not wholly allay oiu- astonish- 
ment. It is probable that in the coiirse of the 



38 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

year every foreign flag appears at Cristobal-Colon, 
for the ocean tramp ships are ever coming and 
going. In time, too, the docks, which are now rather 
rickety, will be worthy of the port, for the government 
is building modern and massive docks on the Cris- 
tobal side of the line. 

At present, however, one lands at Colon, which 
has the disadvantage of depositing you in a foreign 
country with all the annoyances of a custom-house 
examination to endure. Though your destination is 
the Canal Zone, only a stone's throw away, every 
piece of baggage must be opened and inspected. 
The search is not very thorough, and I fancy the 
Panama tariff is not very comprehensive, but the 
formality is an irritating one. Protective tariffs 
will never be wholly popular with travelers. 

The town which greets the voyager emerging from 
the cool recesses of the steamship freight house looks 
something like the landward side of Atlantic City's 
famous board walk with the upper stories of the 
hotels sliced off. The buildings are almost without 
exception wood, two stories high, and with wooden 
galleries reaching to the curb and there supported 
by slender posts. It does not look foreign — merely 
cheap and tawdry. Block after block the lines of 
business follow each other in almost unvarying 
sequence. A saloon, a Chinese shop selling dry 
goods and curios, a kodak shop with curios, a 
saloon, a lottery agency, another saloon, a money- 



CRISTOBAL-COLON 39 

changer's booth, another saloon and so on for what 
seems about the hottest and smelHest half mile 
one ever walked. There is no "other side" to the 
street, for there run the tracks of the Panama rail- 
road, beyond them the bay, and further along lies the 
American town of Cristobal where there are no stores, 
but only the residences and work shops of Canal 
workers. Between Cristobal and tinder-box Colon 
is a wide space kept clear of houses as a fire guard. 

Colon's population is as mixed as the complexions 
of its people. It must be admitted with regret that 
pure American names are most in evidence on the 
signboards of its saloons, and well -equipped students 
of the social life of the town remark that the Amer- 
ican vernacular is the one usually proceeding from 
the lips of the professional gamblers. Merchandising 
is in the main in the hands of the Chinese, who 
compel one's admiration in the tropics by the in- 
telligent way in which they have taken advantage 
of the laziness of the natives to capture for them- 
selves the best places in the business community. 

Most of the people in Colon live over their stores 
and other places of business, though back from the 
business section are a few comfortable looking resi- 
dences, and I noticed others being built on made 
land, as though the beginnings of a mild "boom" 
were apparent. The newer houses are of concrete, 
as is the municipal building and chief public school. 
The Panama Railroad owns most of the land on 



40 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

which the town stands, and to which it is prac- 
tically limited, and the road is said to be encouraging 
the use of cement or concrete by builders — an ex- 
ceedingly wise policy, as the town has suffered from 
repeated fires, in one of which, in 191 1, ten blocks 
were swept away and 1200 people left homeless. 
The Isthmian Canal Commission maintains excel- 
lent fire-fighting forces, both in Cristobal and Ancon, 
and when the local fire departments proved im- 
potent to cope with the flames both of these forces 
were called into play, the Ancon engines and men 
being rushed by special train over the forty-five 
miles of railroad. Of course the fire was in foreign 
territory, but the Republic of Panama did not 
resent the invasion. Since that day many of the 
new buildings have been of concrete, but the pre- 
vailing type of architecture may be described as a 
modified renaissance of the mining shack. 

It is idle to look for points of interest in Colon 
proper. There are none. But the history of the 
town though running over but sixty years is full of 
human interest. It did not share with Panama 
the life of the Spanish domination and aggression. 
Columbus, Balboa and the other navigators sailed 
by its site without heed, making for Porto Bello or 
Nombre de Dios, the better harbors. San Lorenzo, 
whose ruins stand at the mouth of the Chagres 
River, looked down upon busy fleets, and fell before 
the assaults of Sir Henry Morgan and his bucca- 



CRISTOBAL-COLON 41 

neers while the coral island that now upholds Colon 
was tenanted only by pelicans, alligators and ser^ 
pents. The life of man touched it when in 1850 the 
American railroad builders determined to make it 
the Atlantic terminus of the Panama road. Since 
then it never has lost nor will it lose a true inter- 
national importance. 

Manzanilla Island, on which the greater part of 
Colon now stands, was originally a coral reef, on 
which tropical vegetation had taken root, and died 
down to furnish soil for a new jungle until by the repe- 
tition of this process through the ages a foot or two of 
soil raised itself above the siirface of the water and 
supported a swampy jungle. When the engineers 
first came to locate there the beginnings of the 
Panama railroad, they were compelled to make their 
quarters in an old sailing ship in danger at all times 
of being carried out to sea by a norther. In his 
"History of the Panama Railroad", published in 
1862, F. N. Otis describes the site of the present 
city when first fixed thus: 

"This island, cut off from the mainland by a nar- 
row frith, contained an area of a little m.ore than one 
square mile. It was a virgin swamp, covered with 
a dense growth of the tortuous, water -loving man- 
grove, and interlaced with huge vines and thorny 
shrubs defying entrance even to the wild beasts 
common to the country. In the black slimy mud 
of its surface alligators and other reptiles abounded, 



42 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

while the air was laden with pestilential vapors and 
swarming with sandflies and mosquitoes. These last 
proved so annoying to the laborers that unless their 
faces were protected by gauze veils no work could 
be done even at midday. Residence on the island 
was impossible. The party had their headquarters 
in an old brig which brought down materials for 
building, tools, provisions, etc., and was anchored 
in the bay". 

That was in May, 1850. In March, 1913, the 
author spent some time in Colon. Excellent meals 
were enjoyed in a somewhat old-fashioned frame 
hotel, while directly across the way the finishing 
touches were being put to a new hotel, of reinforced 
concrete, which for architectural taste and beauty of 
position compares well with any seashore house in 
the world. At the docks were ships of every nation ; 
cables kept us in communication with all civilized 
capitals. Not an insect of any sort was seen, and 
to discover an alligator a considerable journey was 
necessary. The completed Panama Railroad would 
carry us in three hours to the Pacific, where the 
great water routes spread out again like a fan. In 
half a century man had wrought this change, and 
with his great canal will doubtless do more marvelous 
deeds in the time to come. 

Once construction of the road was begun shacks 
rose on piles amid the swampy vegetation of the 
island. At certain points land was filled in and a 



CRISTOBAL-COLON 43 

solid foundation made for machine shops. The set- 
tlement took a sudden start forward in 1 851 when a 
storm prevented two New York ships from landing 
their passengers at the mouth of the Chagres River. 

The delayed travelers were instead landed at 
Colon, and the rails having been laid as far as 
Gatun, where the great locks now rise, they were 
carried thither by the railroad. This route proving 
the more expeditious the news quickly reached New 
York and the ships began making Colon their port. 
As a result the town grew as fast and as imsubstan- 
tially as a mushroom. 

It was a floating population of people from every 
land and largely lawless. The bard of the Isthmus 
has a poem, too long to quote, which depicts a way- 
farer at the gate of Heaven confessing to high 
crimes, misdemeanors and all the sinful lusts of the 
flesh. At the close of the damning confession he 
whispered something in the ear of the Saint, whose 
brow cleared, and beaming welcome took the place 
of stem rejection. The keeper of the keys according 
to the poet cried : 

" Climb up. Oh, weary one, climb up! 

Climb high! Climb higher yet 
Until you reach the plush-lined seats 

That only martyrs get. 
Then sit you down and rest yourself 

While years of bliss roll on" ! 
Then to the angels he remarked, 

" ^Ee's been living in Colon' "/ 



44 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

With the completion of the Pacific railroads in 
the United States the prosperity of Colon for a 
time waned. There was still business for the rail- 
road, as there has been to the present day, and as it 
is believed there will be in the future despite the 
Canal. But the great rush was ended. The eager 
men hurrying to be early at the place where gold 
was to be found, and the men who had "made their 
pile" hastening home to spend it, took the road 
across the plains. Colon settled down to a period 
of lethargy for which its people were constitutionally 
well fitted. Once in a while they were stirred up by 
reports of the projected Canal, and the annual revo- 
lutions — President Roosevelt in a message to Con- 
gress noted 53 in 57 years — prevented life from be- 
coming wholly monotonous. But there was no 
sign of a renewal of the flush times of the gold rush 
until late in the '70's the French engineers arrived 
to begin the surveys for the Canal. By the way, 
that Isthmus from Darien to Nicaragua is probably 
the most thoroughly surveyed bit of wild land in 
the world. Even on our own Canal Zone, where the 
general line of the Canal was early determined, each 
chief engineer had his own survey made, and most 
of the division engineers prudently resurveyed the 
lines of their chiefs. 

With the coming of the French flush times began 
again on the Isthmus and the golden flood poured 
most into Colon, as the Canal diggers made their 



CRISTOBAL-COLON 45 

main base of operations there, unlike the Americans 
who struck at nature's fortifications all along the 
line, making their headquarters at Culebra about 
the center of the Isthmus. But though the French 
failed to dig the Canal, they did win popularity on 
the Isthmus, and there are regretful and uncom- 
plimentary comparisons drawn in the cafes and 
other meeting places between the thrift and calcu- 
lation of the Americans, and the lavish prodigality 
of the French. Everything they bought was at 
mining- camp prices and they adopted no such plan 
as the commissary system now in vogue to save their 
workers from the rapacity of native shopkeepers of 
all sorts. 

At Cristobal you are gravely taken to see the 
De Lesseps Palace, a huge frame house with two 
wings, now in the last stages of decrepitude and de- 
cay, but which you learn cost fabulous sums, was fur- 
nished and decorated like a royal chateau and was the 
scene of bacchanalian feasts that vied with those of 
the Romans in the days of Heliogabalus. At least 
the native Panamanian will tell you this, and if you 
happen to enjoy his reminiscences in the environ- 
ment of a cafe you will conclude that in starting 
the Canal the French consumed enough champagne 
to fill it. 

Mr. Tracy Robinson, a charming chronicler of 
the events of a lifetime on the Isthmus, says of this 
period: "From the time that operations were well 



46 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

under way until the end, the state of things was 
like the life at 'Red Hoss Mountain' described by 
Eugene Field: 

'When the money flowed like likker .... 
With the joints all throwed wide open, and no sherifl to 
demur'. 

Vice flourished. Gambling of every kind and every 
other form of wickedness were common day and 
night. The blush of shame became practically 
unknown". 

The De Lesseps house stands at what has been 
the most picturesque point in the American town 
of Cristobal. Before it is a really admirable 
work of art, Columbus in the attitude of a protector 
toward a half -nude Indian maiden who kneels at his 
side. After the fashion of a world largely indifferent 
to art the name of the sculptor has been lost, but 
the statue was cast in Turin, for Empress Eugenie, 
who gave it to the Republic of Colombia when the 
French took up the Canal work. Buffeted from site 
to site, standing for awhile betwixt the tracks in a 
railroad freight yard, the spot on which it stood 
when viewed by the writer is sentimentally ideal, 
for it overlooks the entrance to the Canal and under 
the eyes of the Great Navigator, done in bronze, 
the ships of all the world will pass and repass as 
they enter or leave the artificial strait which gives 
substance to the Spaniard's dream. 



CRISTOBAL-COLON 47 

At one time the quarters of the Canal employees 
— the gold employees as those above the grade of 
day laborers are called — were in one of the most 
beautiful streets imaginable. In a long sweeping 
curve from the border line between the two towns, 
they extended in an imbroken row facing the rest- 
less blue waters of the Caribbean. A broad white 
drive and a row of swaying cocoanut trees separated 
the houses from the water. The sea here is always 
restless, siirging in long billows and breaking in 
white foam upon the shore, unlike the Pacific, which 
is usually calm. Unlike the Pacific, too, the tide is 
inconsiderable. At Panama it rises and falls from 
seventeen to twenty feet, and, retiring, leaves long 
expanses of unsightly mud flats, but the Caribbean 
always plays its part in the landscape well. Un- 
happily this picturesque street — called Roosevelt 
Avenue — ^is about to lose its beauty, for its water 
front is to be taken for the great new docks, and 
already at some points one sees the yellow stacks 
of ocean liners mingling with the fronded tops of 
the palms, 

Cristobal is at the present time the site of the 
great cold storage plant of the Canal Zone, the shops 
of the Panama Railroad and the storage warehouses 
in which are kept the supplies for the commissary 
stores at the different villages along the line of the 
Canal. It possesses a fine fire-fighting force, a 
y. M. C. A. club, a commissary hotel, and along 



48 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

the water front of Colon proper are the hospital 
buildings erected by the French but still maintained. 
Many of the edifices extend out over the water and 
the constant breeze ever blowing through their wide 
netted balconies would seem to be the most efficient 
of allies in the fight against disease. One finds less 
distinct separation between the native and the 
American towns at this end of the railroad than at 
Panama- Ancon. This is largely due to the fact that 
a great part of the site of Colon is owned by the 
Panama Railroad, which in turn is owned by the 
United States, so that the activities of oiir govern- 
ment extend into the native town more than at 
Panama. In the latter city the hotel, the hospital 
and the commissary are all on American or Canal 
Zone soil — at Colon they are within the sovereignty 
of the Republic of Panama. 

At present sightseers tarry briefly at Colon, 
taking the first train for the show places along the 
Canal line, or for the more picturesque town of 
Panama. This will probably continue to be the 
case when the liners begin passing through the 
Canal to the Pacific. Many travelers will doubtless 
leave their ships at the Atlantic side, make a hasty 
drive about Colon — it really can be seen in an hour — 
and then go by rail to Panama, anticipating the 
arrival of their ship there by seven hours and getting 
some idea of the country en route. Visitors with 
more time to spare will find one of the short drives 



CRISTOBAL-COLON 49 

that is worth while a trip to the cemetery of Mount 
Hope where from the very beginning of the town 
those who fell in the long battle with nature have 
been laid to rest. The little white headstones mul- 
tiplied fast in the gay and reckless French days 
before sanitation was thought of, and when riot and 
dissipation were the rule and scarcely discouraged. 
"Monkey Hill" was the original name of the place, 
owing to the multitude of monkeys gamboling and 
chattering in the foliage, but as the graves multi- 
plied and the monkeys vanished the rude unfitness 
of the name became apparent and it gave place to 
"Mount Hope". It is pitiful enough in any case; 
but if you will study the dates on the headstones 
you will find the years after 1905 show a rapid 
lessening in the number of tenants. 

If you consider the pictures of certain streets of 
Colon during two phases of their history, you will 
have little trouble in understanding why the death 
rate in the town has been steadily decreasing. In a 
town built upon a natural morass, and on which 
more than eleven feet of water fell annually, there 
was hardly a foot of paving except the narrow 
sidewalks. In the wet season, which extends over 
eight months of the year, the mud in these filthy 
by-ways was almost waist deep. Into it was thrown 
indiscriminately all the household slops, garbage 
and offal. There was no sewage system; no effort 
at drainage. If one wished to cross a street there 



50 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

was nothing for it but to walk for blocks until 
reaching a floating board benevolently provided 
by some merchant who hoped to thus bring custom 
to his doors. Along the water front between the 
steamship piers and the railroad there was an effort 
to pave somewhat, as there was heavy freight to 
be handled, but even there the pavement woiild 
sink out of sight overnight, and at no time could it 
be kept in good condition. The agents of the 
Panama Railroad and the Royal Mail Steam Packet 
Company, whose freight houses adjoined, dumped 
into the seemingly bottomless abyss everything 
heavy and solid that could be brought by land or 
water, but for a long time without avail. Under the 
direction of the United States officers, however, the 
problem was solved, and today the streets of 
Colon are as well paved as those of any Ameri- 
can city, vitrified brick being the material chiefly 
used. 

In the days when there was no pavement there 
were no sewers. Today the town is properly drained, 
and the sewage problem, a very serious one in a 
town with no natural slope and subject to heavy 
rains, is efficiently handled. There was no water 
supply. Drinking water was brought from the 
mainland and peddled from carts, or great jars by 
water carriers. Today there is an aqueduct bringing 
clear cool water from the distant hills. It affords a 
striking commentary upon the lethargy and laziness 




I. COLON IX IS84. 2. ROOSEVELT AVEXUE, CRISTOBAL. 3. THE 
NEW CRISTOBAL DOCKS 




Photo 1 (<•) Underwood A Underwood 
I. (ILD FRENCH DREDGES ABANDONED. 2. FRENCH LOCOMOTIVE 
IN THE JUNGLE. 3. WHAT NATURE DID TO FRENCH MACHINERY 



CRISTOBAL-COLON 51 

of the natives that for nearly half a century they 
should have tolerated conditions which for filth and 
squalor were practically unparalleled. The Indian 
in his palm-thatched hut was better housed and more 
healthfully surrounded than they. 

Even the French failed to correct the evil and so 
failing died like the flies that swarmed about their 
food and their garbage indiscriminately. Not until 
the Americans declared war on filth and appointed 
Col. W. C. Gorgas commander-in-chief of the forces 
of cleanliness and health did Colon get cleaned up. 

About the base of the Toro Point light cluster the 
houses of the engineers employed on the harbor 
work, and on the fortifications which are to guard 
the Atlantic entrance of the canal on the west side — 
other defensive works are building about a mile 
north of Colon. To these and other forts in course 
of construction visitors are but grudgingly admitted 
and the camera is wholly taboo. They are still 
laughing in Col. Goethal's office at a newly elected 
Congressman — not even yet sworn in — who wrote 
that in visiting the Canal Zone he desired particu- 
larly to make an exhaustive study of the fortifica- 
tions, and take many pictures, in order that he 
might be peculiarly fit for membership on the Mili- 
tary Affairs Committee, to which he aspired. 

Toro Point will, after the completion of the 
Canal work, remain only as the camp for such a de- 
tachrnent of coast artillery as may be needed at 



52 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

the forts. The village will be one of those surren- 
dered to the jungle from which it was wrested. 
Cristobal will remain a large, and I should judge, 
a growing town. Colon, which was created by the 
railroad, will still have the road and the Canal to 
support it. 

Without an architectural adornment worthy of 
the name, with streets of shanties, and rows of shops 
in which the cheap and shoddy are the rule, the 
town of Colon does have a certain fascination to 
the idle stroller. That arises from the throngs of its 
picturesque and parti-colored people who are always 
on the streets. At one point you will encounter a 
group of children, among whom even the casual ob- 
server will detect Spanish, Chinese, Indian and negro 
types pure, and varying amalgamations of all play- 
ing together in the childish good fellowship which 
obliterates all racial hostilities. The Chinese are 
the chief business people of the town, and though 
they intermarry but little with the few families of 
the old Spanish strain, their unions, both legalized 
and free, with the mulattoes or negroes are in- 
numerable. You see on the streets many children 
whose negro complexion and kinky hair combine 
but comically with the almond eyes of the celestial. 
Luckily queues are going out of style with the 
Chinese, or the hair of their half-breed offspring 
would form an insurmountable problem. 

Public characters throng in Colon. A town with 



CRISTOBAL-COLON 53 

but sixty years of history naturally abounds in 
early inhabitants. It is almost as bad as Chicago 
was a few years ago when citizens who had reached 
the "anecdotage" would halt you at the Lake Front 
and pointing to that smoke-bedinuned cradle of the 
city's dreamed-of future beauty would assure you 
that they could have bought it all for a pair of 
boots — but didn't have the boots. One of the 
figures long pointed out on the streets of Colon was 
an old colored man — an "ole nigger" in the local 
phrase — who had been there from the days of the 
alligators and the monkeys. He worked for the 
Panama Railroad surveyors, the road when com- 
pleted, the French and the American Canal builders. 
A sense of long and veteran public service had in- 
vested him with an air of dignity rather out of har- 
mony with his raiment. "John Aspinwall" they 
called him, because Aspinwall was for a time the 
name of the most regal significance on the island. 
The Poet of Panama immortalized him in verse 
thus: 

"Oh, a quaint old moke, is John Aspinwall, 

Who lives by the Dead House gate, 
And quaint are his thoughts, if thoughts at all 

Ever lurk in his woolly pate, 
For he's old as the hills is this coal-black man, 

Thrice doubled with age is he, 
And the days when his wanderings first began 

Are shrouded in mystery". 



54 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

If you keep a shrewd and watchful eye on the 
balconies above the cheap -John stores you will now 
and again catch a little glimpse reminiscent of Pekin. 
For the Chinese like to hang their balconies with 
artistic screens, bedeck them with palms, illimiinate 
them with the gay lan|;ems of their home. Some- 
times a woman of complexion of rctther accentuated 
brunette will hang over the rail with a Chinese — 
or at least a Chinesque — baby in the parti-colored 
clothing of its paternal ancestors. Or as you stroll 
along the back or side streets more given over 
to residences, an open door here and there gives a 
glimpse of an interior crowded with household 
goods — and household gods which are babies. Not 
precisely luring are these views. They suggest rather 
that the daily efforts of Col. Gorgas to -make and 
keep the city clean might well have extended further 
behind the front doors of the houses. They did to a 
slight degree, of course, for there was fumigation 
unlimited in the first days of the great cleaning up, 
and even now there is persistent sanitary inspection. 
The Canal Zone authorities relinquished to the 
Panama local officials the paving and sanitation 
work of that city, but retained it in Colon, which 
serves to indicate the estimate put upon the com- 
parative fitness for self-government of the people 
of the two towns. 

Down by the docks, if one likes the savor of 
spices and the odor of tar, you find the real society 



CRISTOBAI^COLON 55 

of the Seven Seas. Every variety of ship is there, 
from the stately ocean Hner just in from South- 
ampton or Havre to the schooner-rigged cayuca 
with its crew of San Bias Indians, down from their 
forbidden country with a cargo of cocoanuts, yams 
and bananas. A ciirious craft is the cayuca. Rang- 
ing in size from a slender canoe twelve feet long 
and barely wide enough to hold a man to a con- 
siderable craft of eight-foot beam and perhaps 35 
to 40 feet on the water line, its many varieties have 
one thing in common. Each is hewn out of a single 
log. Shaped to the form of a boat by the universal 
tool, the machete, and hollowed out partly by burn- 
ing, partly by chipping, these great logs are trans- 
formed into craft that in any hands save those of 
the Indians bred to their use would be peremptory 
invitations to a watery death. But the San Bias 
men pole them through rapids on the Chagres that 
would puzzle a guide of our North Woods, or at 
sea take them out in northers that keep the Hner 
tied to her dock. Some of these boats by the way 
are hollowed from mahogany logs that on the wharf 
at New York or Boston would be worth $2000. 

The history of the Panama Railroad may well be 
briefly sketched here. For its time it was the most 
audacious essay in railway building the world had 
known, for be it known it was begun barely twenty 
years after the first railroad had been built in the 
United States and before either railroad engineers 



56 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

or railroad labor had a recognized place in industry. 
The difficulties to be surmounted were of a sort 
that no men had grappled with before. Engineers 
had learned how to cut down hills, tunnel mountains 
and bridge rivers, but to build a road bed firm 
enough to support heavy trains in a bottomless 
swamp, to run a line through a jungle that seemed 
to grow up again before the transit could follow the 
axeman; to grapple with a river that had been 
known to rise forty feet in a day ; to eat lunch stand- 
ing thigh deep in water with friendly alligators 
looking on from adjacent logs, and to do all this 
amid the unceasing buzz of venomous insects whose 
sting, as we learned half a centiiry later, carried the 
germs of malaria and yellow fever — this was a new 
draft upon engineering skill and endurance that 
might well stagger the best. The demand was met. 
The road was built but at a heavy cost of life. It 
used to be said that a life was the price of every tie 
laid, but this was a picturesque exaggeration. About 
6000 men in all died during the construction period. 
Henry Clay justified his far-sightedness by se- 
curing in 1835 the creation of a commission to con- 
sider the practicability of a trans-isthmian railroad. 
A commissioner was appointed, secured a concession 
from what was then New Granada, died before 
getting home, and the whole matter was forgotten 
for ten years. In this interim the French, for whom 
from the earliest days the Isthmus had a fascina- 



CRISTOBAL-COLON 57 

tion, secured a concession but were imable to raise 
the money necessary for the road's construction. 
In 1849 three Americans who deserve a place in 
history, WilHam H. Aspinwall, John L. Stevens and 
Henry Chauncy, secured a concession at Bogota and 
straightway went to work. Difficulties beset them 
on every side. The swamp had no bottom and for 
a time it seemed that their financial resources had a 
very apparent one. But the rush for gold, though 
it greatly increased the cost of their labor, made 
their enterprise appear more promising to the in- 
vesting public and their temporary need of fimds 
was soon met. 

But the swamp and jungle were unrelenting in 
their toll of human life. Men working all day deep 
in slimy ooze composed of decaying tropical vegeta- 
tion, sleeping exposed to the bites of malaria-bear- 
ing insects, speedily sickened and too often died. 
The company took all possible care of its workmen, 
but even that was not enough. Workingmen of 
every nationality were experimented with but none 
were immune. The historian of the railroad re- 
ported that the African resisted longest, next the 
coolie, then the European, and last the Chinese. 
The experience of the company with the last-named 
class of labor was tragic in the extreme. Eight 
hundred were landed on the Isthmus after a voyage 
on which sixteen had died. Thirty-two fell ill almost 
at the moment of landing and in less than a week 



58 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

eighty more were prostrated. Strangers in a strange 
land, unable to express their complaints or make 
clear their symptoms, they were almost as much the 
victims of homesickness as of any other ill. The 
interpreters who accompanied them declared that 
much of their illness was due to their deprivation of 
their accustomed opium, and for a time the authori- 
ties supplied them, with the result that nearly two- 
thirds were again up and able to work. Then the 
exaggerated American moral sense, which is so apt 
to ignore the customs of other lands and peoples, 
caused the opium supply to be shut off. Perhaps the 
fact that the cost of opium daily per Chinaman was 
15 cents had something to do with it. At any rate 
the whole body of Chinamen were soon sick unto 
death and quite ready for it. They made no effort 
to cling to the lives that had become hateful. Sui- 
cides were a daily occurrence and in all forms. 
Some with Chinese stolidity would sit upon a rock 
on the ocean's bed and wait for the tide to submerge 
them. Many used their own queues as ropes and 
hanged themselves. Others persuaded or bribed 
their fellows to shoot them dead. Some thrust 
sharpened sticks through their throats, or clutching 
great stones leaped into the river maintaining their 
hold until death made the grasp still more rigid. 
Some starved themselves and others died of mere 
brooding over their dismal state. In a few weeks 
but 200 were left alive, and these were sent to 



CRISTOBAL-COLON 59 

Jamaica where they were slowly absorbed by the 
native population. On the line of the old Panama 
Railroad, now abandoned and submerged by the 
waters of Gatun Lake, was a village called Matachin, 
which local etymologists declare means "dead 
Chinaman", and hold that it was the scene of this 
melancholy sacrifice of oriental life. 

The railroad builders soon found that the expense 
of the construction would vastly exceed their esti- 
mates. The price of a principality went into the 
Black Swamp, the road bed through which was prac- 
tically floated on a monster pontoon. It is not true, 
as often asserted, that engines were sunk there to 
make a foundation for the road, but numbers of flat 
cars were thus employed to furnish a floating foim- 
dation. The swamp which impeded the progress 
of the road was about five miles south of Gatun 
and was still giving trouble in 1908, when the heavier 
American rolling stock was put upon the road. 
Soundings then made indicate that the solid bottom 
under the ooze is 185 feet below the surface, and 
somewhere between are the scores of dump cars 
and the thousands of tons of rock and earth with 
which the monster has been fed. The Americans 
conquered it, apparently, in 1908, by building a 
trestle and filling it with cinders and other light 
material. But every engineer was glad when in 
1 9 12 the relocation of the road abandoned the Black 
Swamp to its original diabolical devices. 



6o PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

Even in so great an affair as the building of rail- 
roads, chance or good fortune plays a considerable 
part. So it was the hurricane which first drove 
two ships bearing the California gold seekers from 
the mouth of the Chagres down to Colon that gave 
the railroad company just the stimulus necessary 
to carry it past the lowest ebb in its fortunes. 
Before that it had no income and could no longer 
borrow money. Thereafter it had a certain income 
and its credit was at the very best. Every addi- 
tional mile finished added to its earnings, for every 
mile was used since it lessened the river trip to the 
Pacific. In January, 1855, the last rail was laid, 
and on the 28th of that month the first train crossed 
from ocean to ocean. The road had then cost almost 
$7,000,000 or more than $150,000 a mile, but owing 
to the peculiar conditions of the time and place it 
had while building earned $2,125,000 or almost 
one-third its cost. Its length was 47 miles, its 
highest point was 263 feet above sea-level, it crossed 
streams at 170 points — most of the crossings being 
of the Chagres River. As newly located by the 
American engineers a great number of these cross- 
ings are avoided. 

Traffic for the road grew faster than the road itself 
and when it was complete^ it was quite apparent 
that it was not equipped to handle the business that 
awaited it. Accordingly the managers determined 
to charge more than the traffic would bear — to fix 



CRISTOBAI^COLON 6l 

such rates as would be prohibitive until they could 
get the road suitably equipped. Mr. Tracy Robin- 
son says that a few of the lesser officials at Panama 
got up a sort of burlesque rate card and sent it on 
to the general offices in New York. It charged 
$25 for one fare across the Isthmus one way, or 
$10 second class. Personal baggage was charged 
five cents a pound, express $1.80 a cubic foot, second- 
class freight fifty cents a cubic foot, coal $5 a ton, — 
all for a haul of forty-seven miles. To the amaze- 
ment of the Panama jokers the rates were adopted 
and, what was more amazing, they remained im- 
changed for twenty years. During that time the 
company paid dividends of 24%, with an occasional 
stock dividend and liberal additions to the siu-plus. 
Its stock at one time went up to 335 and as in its 
darkest days it could have been bought for a song 
those who had bought it were more lucky than most 
of the prospectors who crowded its coaches on the 
journey to the gold fields. 

Too much prosperity brought indifference and lax 
management and the finances of the road were 
showing a decided deterioration when the French 
took up the Canal problem. One of the chief values 
of the franchise granted by New Granada and after- 
ward renewed by Colombia was the stipulation that 
no canal should be built in the territory without the 
consent of the railroad corporation. With this club 
the directors forced the French to buy them out, 



62 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

and when the rights of the French Canal company 
passed to the United States we acquired the railroad 
as well. 

It is now Uncle Sam's first essay in the govern- 
ment ownership and operation of railroads. Ex- 
tremists declare that his success as a manager is 
shown by the fact that he takes a passenger from 
the Atlantic to the Pacific in three hours for $2.4.0, 
while the privately owned Pacific railroads take 
several days and charge about $75 to accomplish 
the same result. There is a fallacy in this argument 
somewhere, but there is none in the assertion that 
by government officials the Panama Railroad is 
run successfully both from the point of service and 
of profits. Its net earnings for the fiscal year of 
1 91 2 were $1,762,000, of which about five-sixths 
was from commercial business. But it must be re- 
membered that in that year the road was conducted 
primarily for the purpose of Canal building — every- 
thing was subordinated to the Big Job. That 
brought it abnormal revenue, and laid upon it ab- 
normal burdens. The record shows, however, that 
it was directed with a singular attention to detail 
and phenomenal success. When passenger trains 
must be run so as never to interfere with dirt trains, 
and when dirt trains must be so run that a few score 
steam-shovels dipping up five cubic yards of broken 
rock at a mouthful shall never lack for a flat car on 
which to dump the load, it means some fine work 



CRISTOBAL-COLON 63 

for the traffic manager. The superintendent of 
schools remarked to me that the question whether 
a passenger train should stop at a certain station 
to pick up school children depended on the con- 
venience of certain steam-shovels and that the 
matter had to be decided by Col. Goethals. Which 
goes to show that the Colonel's responsibilities are 
varied — but of that more anon, as the story-tellers 
say. 

Within a few years forty miles of the Panama 
Railroad have been relocated, the prime purpose of 
the change being to obviate the necessity of crossing 
the Canal at any point. One of the witticisms of 
the Zone is that the Panama is the only railroad 
that runs crosswise as well as lengthwise. This 
jest is partly based on the fact that nine-tenths of 
the line has been moved to a new location, but more 
on the practice of picking up every night or two 
some thousand feet of track in the Canal bed and 
moving it bodily, ties and all, some feet to a new line. 
This is made necessary when the steam-shovels have 
dug out all the rock and dirt that can be reached 
from the old line, and it is accomplished by machines 
called track shifters, each of which accomplishes the 
work of hundreds of men. 

The Panama Railroad is today what business men 
call a going concern. But it is run with a singular 
indifference to private methods of railroad manage- 
ment. It has a board of directors, but they do little 



64 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

directing. Its shares do not figure in Wall Street, 
and we do not hear of it floating loans, scaling down 
debts or engaging in any of the stock-jobbing opera- 
tions which in late years have resulted in railroad 
presidents being lawyers rather than railroad men. 
The United States government came into possession 
of a railroad and had to run it. Well? The govern- 
ment proved equal to the emergency and perhaps 
its experience will lead it to get possession of yet 
other railroads. The Panama experience is already 
being quoted for the benefit of Alaska. Perhaps if 
the State proves its efficiency in the Arctic as well 
as the Torrid Zone it may be permitted to do some- 
thing for the general good at home. 




CHAPTER III 

THREE SPANISH STRONGHOLDS 

'ITHIN twenty miles, at the very most, east 
and west of Colon lie the chief existing 
memorials of the bygone days of Spanish 
discovery and colonization, and English reckless 
raids and destruction, on the Isthmus. All that 
is picturesque and enthralling — that is to say all 
that is stirring, bloody and lawless — in the history 
of the Caribbean shore of the Isthmus lies thus ad- 
jacent to the Atlantic entrance of the Canal. To 
the east are Nombre de Dios and Porto Bello — the 
oldest European settlements on the North American 
continent, the one being founded about 1510, almost 
a century and a half before the landing at Plymouth 
and the other in 1607, the very year of the planting 
of Jamestown, Virginia. To the west is the castle 
of San Lorenzo at the mouth of the Chagres, the 
gateway to the Pacific trade, built in the latter 
years of the sixteenth century and repeatedly 
destroyed. About these Spanish outposts, once 
thriving market towns and massive fortresses, but 
now vine-covered ruins where "the lion and the 
lizard keep their court" clusters a wealth of his- 
torical lore. 

65 



66 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

Twenty miles from Colon to the east is the spacious 
deep water harbor of Porto Bello, visited and named 
by Columbus in 1502. Earlier still it had harbored 
the ships of Roderigo de Bastides who landed there 
in 1500 — probably the first European to touch 
Panama soil. He sought the Strait to the Indies, 
and gold as well. A few miles east and north of 
Porto Bello is Nombre de Dios, one of the earliest 
Spanish settlements but now a mere cluster of huts 
amidst which the Canal workers were only recently 
dredging sand for use in construction. Few visit 
Nombre de Dios for purposes of curiosity and 
indeed it is little worth visiting, for fires, floods 
and the shifting sands of the rivers have obliterated 
all trace of the old town. It was founded by one 
Don Diego de Nicuesa, who had held the high office 
of Royal Carver at Madrid. Tired of supervising 
the carving of meats for his sovereign he sailed for 
the Isthmus to carve out a fortune for himself. 
Hurricanes, treachery, jealousy, hostile Indians, 
mutinous sailors and all the ills that jolly mariners 
have to face had somewhat abated his jollity and 
his spirit as well when he rounded Manzanillo Point 
and finding himself in a placid bay exclaimed: 
*' Detengamonos aqui, en nombre de Dios'' (Let 
us stop here in the name of God). His crew, 
superstitious and pious as Spanish sailors were 
in those days, though piety seldom interfered with 
their profanity or piracy, seized on the devout 




I. A BACK STREET IN TABOGA. 2, A BIT OF PORTO BELLO 




I. ROAD FROM PANAMA TO BALBOA. 2. THE SLICED-OFF ANCON 
HILL. 3. THE BIG FILL AT BALBOA 



THREE SPANISH STRONGHOLDS ^^ 

invocation and Nombre de Dios became the name 
of the port. 

Despite the piety of the name Nombre de Dios 
had but a brief existence, and that a checkered one. 
Its cHmate was pestilential, being particularly hard 
on women and children. It was incapable of de- 
fense and was ravaged alternately by Cimmaroons 
(escaped slaves) and buccaneers. In 1572 Sir 
Francis Drake made a visit there, discovering to 
his joy a pile of silver ingots worth two millions ster- 
ling. But the richness of his " find " was his undoing, 
for it was too heavy to carry away, and the Spaniards 
rallying drove him away with little spoil and a 
wound whereof he nearly died. 

Ultimately, by royal decree, Nombre de Dios was 
abandoned and a new city built at Porto Bello. 
The old site relapsed into the wilderness. 

Nombre de Dios then affords little encouragement 
for the visits of tourists, but Porto Bello, nearer 
Colon, is well worth a visit. The visit, however, is 
not easily made. The trip by sea is twenty miles 
steaming in the open Caribbean which is always 
rough, and which on this passage seems to any save 
the most hardened navigators tempestuous beyond 
all other oceans. There are, or rather were, no regu- 
lar lines of boats running from Colon and one desiring 
to visit the historic spot must needs plead with the 
Canal Commission for a pass on the government 
tug which makes the voyage daily. The visit is well 



68 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

worth the trouble however, for the ruins are among 
the finest on the American continent, while the bay 
itself is a noble inlet. So at least Columbus thought 
it when he first visited it in 1 502 . His son, Fernando, 
who afterward wrote of this fourth voyage of the 
Genoese navigator, tells of this visit thus: 

"The Admiral without making any stay went 
on till he put into Puerto Bello, giving it that 
name because it is large, well peopled and encom- 
passed by a well cultivated country. . . . The 
country about the harbor, higher up, is not very 
rough but tilled and fidl of houses, a stone's throw 
or a bow shot one from the other; and it looks like 
the finest landscape a man can imagine. During 
seven days we continued there, on account of the 
rain and ill weather, there came continually canoes 
from all the country about to trade for provisions, 
and bottoms of fine spun cotton which they gave for 
some trifles such as points and pins". 

Time changes, and things and places change with 
it. What are "bottoms of fine spun cotton" and 
"trifles such as points"? As for the people whose 
houses then so plentifully besprinkled the landscape 
round about, they have largely vanished. Slain in 
battle, murdered in cold blood, or enslaved and 
worked to death by the barbarous Spaniards, they 
have given place to a mongrel race mainly negro, 
and of them even there are not enough to give to 
Porto Bello today the cheery, well-populated air 



THREE SPANISH STRONGHOLDS 69 

which the younger Columbus noticed more than 400 
years ago. 

The city grew rapidly. By 161 8 there were 130 
houses in the main town not counting the suburbs, 
a cathedral, governor's house, kings' houses, a 
monastery, convent of mercy and hospital, a plaza 
and a quay. The main city was well-built, partly 
of stone or brick, but the suburbs, one of which was 
set aside for free negroes, were chiefly of wattled 
canes with palm thatch. A few plantations and 
gardens bordered on the city, but mainly the green 
jungle came down to the very edge as it does with 
Chagres, Cruces or other native towns today. 

It was the Atlantic port of entry for not Panama 
alone but for the entire west coast of South America 
and for merchandise intended for the Philippines. 
Its great days were of course the times of the annual 
fairs which lasted from 40 to 60 days, but even at 
other times there were 40 vessels and numbers of 
flat boats occupied in the trade of the port. Yet it 
was but an outpost in the jungle after all. No man 
alone dared tread the royal road from the city's 
gate after nightfall. In the streets snakes, toads 
and the ugly iguana, which the natives devour 
eagerly, were frequently to be seen. The native 
wild cat — called grandiloquently a lion or a tiger — 
prowled in the suburbs and, besides carrying off 
fowls, sometimes attacked human beings. 

Porto Bello was the first landing place on the 



70 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

American coast of Vasco Nunez de Balboa, a penni- 
less adventurer who was fain to escape his creditors 
by being carried aboard ship in a cask. The sailors 
laughed at him as '^ el homhre de casco'" ("the man in 
the cask"), but he won a less contemptuous title 
when he discovered the Pacific Ocean. A natural 
leader of men, he speedily became the captain of 
those who ridiculed him, and led in the work of 
raiding the Indian villages for gold, by which the 
Spaniards aroused a hatred among the Indian 
tribes which after the lapse of four centuries still 
endures. 

One can hardly read of the Spaniards in Central 
America and Peru without sympathizing somewhat 
with the Indian cacique, who, having captured two 
of the marauders, fastened them to the ground, 
propped open their jaws and poured molten gold 
down their throats saying the while: "Here's gold, 
Spaniards! Here's gold. Take a plenty; drink it 
down! Here's more gold". 

It is fair to say that of all the ruffianly spoHators 
Vasco Nufiez de Balboa was the least criminal. If 
he fought savagely to overthrow local caciques, he 
neither tortured, enslaved nor slew them after his 
victory, but rather strove to make them his friends. 
Had he remained in power the history of Central 
and South America might have been different from 
what his successors Pedrarias and Cortez made it. 

When doing his best work Balboa was supplanted 



THREE SPANISH STRONGHOLDS 71 

by Pedrarias, a courtier of Madrid, who sought this 
lucrative post. But in a subordinate position the 
deposed leader continued his gold-seeking cam- 
paigns on the Isthmus. In the course of these he 
heard of the wealth of Peru and determined to seek 
it. In this end he failed but discovered the Pacific 
instead. 

His expedition consisted of an army of 190 
Spaniards and about 1000 Indians. A pack of the 
trained European war dogs were taken along. 
The old chroniclers tell singular tales about these 
dogs. Because of the terror they inspired among the 
Indians they were held more formidable than an 
equal number of soldiers. One great red dog with a 
black muzzle and extraordinary strength was en- 
dowed with the rank of a captain and drew the pay 
of his rank. In battle the brutes pursued the fleeing 
Indians and tore their naked bodies with their 
fangs. It is gravely reported that the Captain could 
distinguish between a hostile and a friendly native. 

It is practically impossible to trace now the exact 
line followed by Balboa across the Isthmus. Visi- 
tors to the Canal Zone are shown Balboa Hill, 
named in honor of his achievement, from which 
imder proper climatic conditions one can see both 
oceans. But it is wholly improbable that Balboa 
ever saw this hill. His route was further to the 
eastward than the Zone. We do know however 
that he emerged from the jungle at some point on 



72 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

the Gulf of San Miguel. What or where the hill 
was from which with "eagle eyes he star'd at the 
Pacific" we can only guess. It was one of the 
elevations in the province of Quareque, and before 
attaining it Balboa fought a battle with the Indians 
of that tribe who vastly outnumbered his force 
but were not armed to fight Spaniards. "Even as 
animals are cut up in the shambles", according to 
the account of Peter Martyr, "so our men, following 
them, hewed them in pieces ; from one an arm, from 
another a leg, here a buttock, there a shoulder". 

Balboa's force of Spaniards was now reduced to 
67 men ; the rest were laid up by illness, but notwith- 
standing the ghastly total of Indian lives taken, no 
Spaniard had been slain. With these he proceeded 
a day's journey, coming to a hill whence his native 
guides told him the sought-for sea might be seen. 
Ordering his men to stay at the base he ascended the 
hill alone, forcing his way through dense under- 
brush under the glaring tropical sun of a September 
day. Pious chroniclers set down that he fell on his 
knees and gave thanks to his Creator — an act of 
devotion which coming so soon after his slaughter of 
the Quareque Indians irresistibly recalls the witti- 
cism at the expense of the Pilgrim Fathers, that on 
landing they first fell upon their knees and then upon 
the aborigines. Whatever his spirit, Balboa never 
failed in the letter of piety. His band of cut-throats 
being summoned to the hilltop joined the official 



THREE SPANISH STRONGHOLDS 73 

priest in chanting the "Te Deum Laudamus" and 
"Te Dominum confitur". Crosses were erected 
buttressed with stones which captive Indians, still 
dazed by the slaughter of their people, helped to 
heap. The names of all the Spaniards present were 
recorded. In fact few historic exploits of so early 
a day are so well authenticated as the details of 
Balboa's triumph. 

Descending the hill, they proceeded with their 
march for they were then but half way to their goal. 
Once again they had to fight the jungle and its 
savage denizens. Later exploring parties, even in 
our own day, have found the jungle alone invincible. 
Steel, gunpowder and the bloodhounds opened the 
way, and the march continued while the burden of 
gold increased daily. It is curious to read of the 
complete effrontery with which these land pirates 
commandeered all the gold there was in sight. 
From Comagre were received 4000 ounces — "a 
gift"; from Panca, ten pounds; Chiapes disgorged 
500 pounds to purchase favor; from Cocura 650 
pesos worth of the yellow metal and from Tumaco 
640 pesos besides two basins full of pearls of which 
240 were of extraordinary size. The names of these 
dead and gone Indian chiefs signify nothing today, 
but this partial list of contributions shows that as a 
collector Balboa was as efficient as the Wiskinkie of 
Tammany Hall. Not counting pearls and girls 
— of both of which commodities large store was 



74 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

gathered up — the spoil of the expedition exceeded 
40,000 pesos in value. 

It was September 29, 15 13, that at last Balboa 
and his men reached the Pacific. Being St. Mich- 
ael's day they named the inlet of the sea they had 
attained the Gulf of St. Michael. On their first 
arrival they found they had reached the sea, but 
not the water, for the tide which at that point rises 
and falls twenty feet was out and a mile or more of 
muddy beach interspersed with boulders intervened 
between them and the water's edge. So they sat 
down until the tide had returned when Balboa waded 
in thigh deep and claimed land and sea, all its islands 
and its boundaries for the King of Spain. After 
having thus performed the needful theatrical cere- 
monies, he returned to the practical by leading his 
men to the slaughter of some neighboring Indians 
whose gold went to swell the growing hoard. 

But Balboa was approaching the end of his illus- 
trious career. His letters to the King announcing 
his triumphs took months to reach their destination. 
Meanwhile, Pedrarias, old, vain, ill-tempered and 
jealous, was on the Isthmus with complete authority 
over him. The blow was not long in falling. 

Balboa had fought the Indian tribes to their 
knees, then placated them, freed them without 
torture and made them his allies. Pedrarias ap- 
plied the methods of the slave trader to the native 
population. Never was such misery heaped upon 



THREE SPANISH STRONGHOLDS 75 

an almost helpless foe, save when later his apt pupil 
Pizarro invaded Peru. The natives were murdered, 
enslaved, robbed, starved. As Bancroft says ' ' in addi- 
tion to gold there were always women for baptism, 
lust and slavery". The whole Isthmus blazed with 
war, and where Balboa had conquered without 
losing a man Pedrarias lost 70 in one campaign. 
One of these raids was into the territory now known 
as the Canal Zone. On one raid Balboa complained 
to the King there "was perpetrated the greatest 
cruelty ever heard of in Arabian or Christian country 
in any generation. And it is this. The captain and 
the surviving Christians, while on this journey, 
took nearly 100 Indians of both sexes, mostly women 
and children, fastened them with chains and after- 
ward ordered them to be decapitated and scalped". 

Ill feeling rapidly increased between Pedrarias 
and Balboa. The former with the jealousy and 
timidity of an old man continually suspected Balboa 
of plotting against him. His suspicion was not al- 
layed when royal orders arrived from Spain creating 
Balboa adelantado and governor of the newly 
discovered Pacific coast. 

One of Balboa's men reported to Pedrarias a con- 
versation which a suspicious mind might take as 
evidence of a conspiracy. 

In a rage Pedrarias determined to put an end to 
Balboa. Accordingly he wrote a pleasant letter, 
beseeching him to come to Santa Maria for a con- 



76 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

ference. That Balboa came willingly is evidence 
enough that he had no guilty knowledge of any plot. 
Before he reached his destination however, he was 
met by Pizarro with an armed guard who arrested 
him. No word of his could change the prearranged 
program. He was tried but even the servile court 
which convicted him recommended mercy, which 
the malignant Pedrarias refused. Straightaway 
upon the verdict the great explorer, with four of his 
men condemned with him, were marched to the 
scaffold in the Plaza, where stood the block. In a 
neighboring hut, pulling apart the wattled canes of 
which it was built that he might peer out while 
himself unseen, Pedrarias gloated at the sight of the 
blood of the man whom he hated with the insane 
hatred of a base and malignant soul. There the 
heads of the four were stricken off, and with the 
stroke died Vasco Nuiiez de Balboa, the man whose 
name more than any other's deserves to be linked 
with that of Columbus in the history of the Isthmus 
of Panama. It was in 151 7 and Balboa was but 
forty-two years old. 

The discovery of the Pacific led to the conquest of 
Peru under Pizarro, the founding of Old Panama 
and the development at Porto Bello of the port 
through which all the wealth wrung from that hapless 
land of the Incas found its Atlantic outlet. For 
great as was the store of gold, silver and jewels 
torn from the Isthmian Indians and sent from 




I. ENTRANCE TO PORTO BELLO. 2. OLD CUSTOM HOUSE AT PORTO 
BELLO. 3. SPANISH FORT AT PORTO BELLO 




I. THE ARCHED BRIDGE AT OLD PANAMA. 2. TOWER OF ST. 
AUGUSTINE, OLD PANAMA. 3. RUINS OF CASA REALE 



THREE SPANISH STRONGHOLDS 'n 

these Spanish ports back to Spain, it is a mere 
rivulet compared to the flood of gold that poured 
through the narrow trails across the Isthmus 
after Pizarro began his ravishment of Peru. With 
the conquest of the Land of the Incas, and the 
plunder thereof that made of the Isthmus a mighty 
treasure house attracting all the vampires and vul- 
tures of a predatory day, we have little to do here. 
Enough to point out that all that was extorted 
from the Peruvians was sent by ship to Panama and 
thence by mule carriage either across the trail to 
Nombre de Dios or Porto Bello, or else by land car- 
riage to some point on the Chagres River, usually 
Venta Cruces, and thence by the river to San 
Lorenzo and down the coast to Porto Bello. Nor did 
the mules return with empty packs. The Peruvians 
bought from the bandits who robbed them, and 
goods were brought from Spain to be shipped from 
Panama to South America and even to the Philip- 
pines. 

It seems odd to us today with "the Philippine 
problem" engaging political attention, and with 
American merchants hoping that the canal may 
stimulate a profitable Philippine trade, that three 
hundred years ago Spanish merchants found profit 
in sending goods by galleons to Porto Bello, by 
mule-pack across the Isthmus and by sailing vessel 
again to Manila. Perhaps to the "efficiency ex- 
perts" of whom we are hearing so much these days, 



78 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

it might be worth while to add some experts in 
enterprise. 

As this Spanish trade increased the French and 
other corsairs or buccaneers sprang into being — 
plain pirates who preyed however on Spanish com- 
merce alone, Some of them finding excuse in the fact 
that the Spaniards were Catholics, and the French 
in the assertion that Spain had no right to monopo- 
lize all American trade. The excuses were mere 
subterfuges. The men offering them were not ani- 
mated by religious convictions, nor would they have 
engaged in the American trade if permitted. For 
them the more exciting and profitable pursuit of 
piracy, and this they pushed with such vigor that 
by 1526 the merchant vessels in the trade would sail 
together in one fleet guarded by men-of-war. At 
times these fleets numbered as many as forty sail, 
all carrying guns. The system of trade — all regu- 
lated by royal decree — was for the ships to 
sail for Cartagena on the coast of Colombia, 
a voyage occupying usually about two months. 
Arrived there, a courier was sent to Porto Bello 
and on to Panama with tidings of the ap- 
proach of the fleet. Other couriers spread the 
tidings throughout the northern provinces of South 
America. 

The fleet would commonly stay at Cartagena a 
month, though local merchants often bribed the 
general in command to delay it longer. For with 



THREE SPANISH STRONGHOLDS 79 

the arrival of the ships the town awoke to a brief 
and delirious period of trading. Merchants flocked 
to Cartagena with indigo, tobacco and cocoa from 
Venezuela, gold and emeralds from New Granada, 
pearls from Margarita and products of divers sorts 
from the neighboring lands. While this business 
was in progress, and the newly laden galleons were 
creeping along the coast to Nombre de Dios and 
Porto Bello, word had been sent to Lima for the 
plate fleet to come to Panama bearing the tribute 
to the King — gold stripped from the walls of tem- 
ples, pearls pried from the eyes of sacred images, 
ornaments wrested from the arms and necks of 
native women by a rude and ribald soldiery. With 
the plate fleet came also numerous vessels taking 
advantage of the convoy, though indeed there was 
little danger from pirates on the Pacific. The At- 
lantic, being nearer European civilization, swarmed 
with these gentry. 

At Panama all was transferred to mules and started 
for the Atlantic coast. So great was the volume 
of treasure and of goods to be transported that the 
narrow trail along which the mules proceeded in 
single file, usually 100 in a caravan or train, was 
occupied almost from one end to the other, and the 
tinkling of the mule-bells, and the cries of the mule- 
teers were seldom stilled. Indians sometimes raided 
the trail and cut out a loaded mule or two, and the 
buccaneers at one time, finding robbery by sea 



8o PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

monotonous, landed and won rich booty by raiding 
a treasure caravan. 

Sir Francis Drake, to whose unprofitable trip to 
Nombre de Dios reference has been made, led an 
attack on the bullion caravans which also failed and 
ridiculously. This was to be nothing less than a 
land expedition to cut off one of the treasure cara- 
vans just outside of old Panama on its way down 
the Nombre de Dios trail. Had the Indian popula- 
tion been as hostile to the English then as they be- 
came in later days this would have been a more 
perilous task. But at this time the men who liirked 
in the jungles, or hunted on the broad savannas 
had one beast of prey they feared and hated more 
than the lion or the boa — the Spaniard. Whether 
Indian or Cimmaroon — as the escaped slaves were 
called — every man out in that tropic wilderness had 
some good ground for hating the Spaniards, and so 
when Drake and his men came, professing themselves 
enemies of the Spaniards likewise, the country folk 
made no war upon them but aided them to creep 
down almost within sight of Panama. Halting here, 
at a point which must have been well within the 
Canal Zone and which it seems probable was near 
the spot where the Pedro Miguel locks now rise, they 
sent a spy into the town who soon brought back 
information as to the time when the first mule-train 
would come out. 

All seemed easy then. Most of the travel across 



THREE SPANISH STRONGHOLDS 8i 

the isthmus was by night to avoid the heat of the 
day. Drake disposed his men by the side of the 
trail — two Indians or Cimmaroons to each armored 
EngHshman. The latter had put their shirts on 
outside of their breastplates so that they might be 
told in the dark by the white cloth — for the ancient 
chroniclers would have us believe them punctilious 
about their laundry work. All were to lie silent in 
the jungle until the train had passed, then closing in 
behind cut off all retreat to Panama — when ho! for 
the fat panniers crammed with gold and precious 
stones ! 

The plan was simplicity itself and was defeated 
by an equally simple mischance. The drinks of the 
Isthmus which, as we have seen, the Spaniards 
commended mightily when they drank, were treach- 
erous in their workings upon the human mind — a 
quality which has not passed away with the bucca- 
neers and Cimmaroons, but still persists. One of 
Drake's jolly followers, being overfortified with 
native rum for his nocturnal vigil, heard the tinkle 
of mule bells and rose to his feet. The leading 
muleteer turned his animal and fled, crying to the 
saints to protect him from the sheeted specter in 
the path. The captain in charge of the caravan was 
dubious about ghosts, but, there being a number of 
mules loaded with grain at hand, concluded to send 
them on to see if there were anything about the 
ghosts which a proper prayer to the saint of the 



82 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

day would exorcise. So the waiting men again 
heard the tinkling mule bells, paused this time in 
low-breathing silence to let the rich prize pass, 
then with shouts of triumph dashed from the jungle, 
cut down or shot the luckless muleteers, and swarmed 
about the caravan eager to cut the bags and get at 
the booty — and were rewarded with sundry bushels 
of grain intended to feed the crowds at Nombre 
de Dios. 

The disaster was irreparable. The true treasure 
train at the first uproar had fled back to the walls 
of Panama. Nothing was left to Drake and his 
men but to plod back empty-handed to Cruces, 
where they had left their boats. Of cotirse they 
visited the town before leaving but the season was 
off and the warehouses were barren. 

After a time in England Drake retiirned to the 
Caribbean with a considerable naval force, harried 
the coast, burned and sacked some towns, including 
Nombre de Dios, and obtained heavy ransom from 
others. He put into the harbor of Porto Bello with 
the intent of taking it also, but while hesitating 
before the formidable fortresses of the place was 
struck down by death. His body, encased in lead, 
was sunk in the bay near perhaps to the ancient 
sh'ps which our dredges have brought to light. 
The English long revered him as a great sailor and 
commander, which he was, but a bold adventurer 
withal. His most permanent influence on the his- 



THREE SPANISH STRONGHOLDS 83 

tory of the Isthmus was his demonstration that 
Nombre de Dios was incapable of defense, and its 
consequent disappearance from the map. 

Such greatness as had pertained to Nombre de 
Dios was soon assumed by Porto Bello, which soon 
grew far beyond the size attained by its predecessor. 
It became indeed a substantially built town, and its 
fortresses on the towering heights on either side of 
the beautifiil bay seemed fit to repel any invader — • 
notwithstanding which the town was repeatedly 
taken by the English. Even today the ruins of 
town and forts are impressive, more so than any 
ruins readily accessible on the continent, though to 
see them at their best you must be there when the 
jungle has been newly cut away, else all is lost in a 
canopy of green. Across the bay from the town, 
about a mile and a half, stand still the remnants 
of the "Iron Castle" on a towering bluff. Castle 
Gloria and Fort Geronimo. These defensive works 
were built of stone cut from reefs under the water 
found all along the coast. Almost as light as pumice 
stone and soft and easily worked when first cut, 
this stone hardens on exposure so that it will stop 
a ball without splitting or chipping. Even today 
the relics of the Iron Fort present an air of bygone 
power and the rusty cannon still lying by the 
embrasures bring back vividly the days of the buc- 
caneers. 

Inheriting the greatness and prosperity of Nombre 



84 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

de Dios, Porto Bello inherited also its unpleasant 
prominence as a target for the sea rover. French 
filibusters and British buccaneers raided it at their 
fancy while the black Cimmaroons of the mainland 
lay in wait for caravans entering or leaving its gates. 
To describe, or even to enumerate all the raids 
upon the town would be wearisome to the reader. 
Most savage, however, of the pests that attacked 
it was Sir Henry Morgan, the famous Welsh buc- 
caneer. 

Morgan's expedition, which occurred in 1668, 
consisted of nine ships and about 460 men, nearly all 
English — too small a force to venture against such 
a stronghold. But the intrepid commander would 
listen to no opposition. His ships anchored near 
Manzanillo Island where now stands Colon. Thence 
by small boats he conveyed all save a few of his 
men to a point near the landward side of the town, 
for he feared to attack by sea because of the great 
strength of the forts. Having taken the Castle of 
Triana he resolved to shock and horrify the inhab- 
itants of the town by a deed of cold-blooded and 
wholesale murder, and accordingly drove all the 
defenders into a single part of the castle and with a 
great charge of gunpowder demolished it and them 
together. If horrified, the Spaniards were not 
terrified, but continued bravely the defense of the 
works they still held. For a time the issue of the 
battle looked dark for Morgan, when to his callous 



THREE SPANISH STRONGHOLDS 85 

and brutal mind there occurred an idea worthy of 
him alone. Esquemeling, the surgeon of the expedi- 
tion, wrote: 

"To this effect, therefore, he ordered ten or 
twelve ladders to be made, in all possible haste, so 
broad that three or four men at once might ascend 
them. These being finished, he commanded all the 
religious men and women whom he had taken pris- 
oners to fix them against the walls of the castle. 
Thus much had he before threatened the governor 
to perform, in case he delivered not the castle. But 
his answer was: / *I will never surrender myself 
alive.' Captain Morgan was much persuaded that 
the governor would not employ his utmost forces, 
seeing religious women and ecclesiastical persons 
exposed in the front of the soldiers to the greatest 
dangers. Thus the ladders, as I have said, were 
put into the hands of religious persons of both 
sexes ; and these were forced at the head of the com- 
panies, to raise and apply them to the walls. But 
Captain Morgan was deceived in his judgment of 
this design. For the governor, who acted like a 
brave and courageous soldier, refused not, in per- 
formance of his duty, to use his utmost endeavors to 
destroy whosoever came near the walls. The 
religious men and women ceased not to cry unto 
him and beg of him by all the Saints of Heaven he 
would deliver the castle, and hereby spare both his 
and their own lives. But nothing could prevail with 



86 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

the obstinacy and fierceness that had possessed the 
governor's mind. Thus many of the religious men 
and nuns were killed before they could fix the ladders. 
Which at last being done, though with great loss of 
the said religious people, the pirates mounted them 
in great numbers and with no less valour; having 
fireballs in their hands and earthen pots full of 
powder. All which things, being now at the top of 
the walls, they kindled and cast in among the 
Spaniards. 

"This effort of the pirates was very great, inso- 
much as the Spaniards could no longer resist nor 
defend the castle, which was now entered. Hereupon 
they all threw down their arms, and craved quarter 
for their lives. Only the governor of the city would 
admit or crave no mercy; but rather killed many of 
the pirates with his own hands, and not a few of his 
own soldiers because they did not stand to their 
arms. And although the pirates asked him if he 
would have quarter, yet he constantly answered: 
'By no means; I had rather die as a valiant soldier, 
than be hanged as a coward'. They endeavored as 
much as they could to take him prisoner. But he 
defended himself so obstinately that they were forced 
to kill him ; notwithstanding all the cries and tears 
of his own wife and daughter, who begged him 
upon their knees he would demand quarter and 
save his life." 

For fifteen days the buccaneers held high carnival 



THREE SPANISH STRONGHOLDS S; 

in Porto Bello. Drunk most of the time, weakened 
with debauchery and riot, with discipHne thrown to 
the winds, and captains and fighting men scattered 
all over the town in pursuit of women and wine, the 
outlaws were at the mercy of any determined assail- 
ant. Esquemeling said, " If there could have been 
found 50 determined men they could have retaken 
the city and killed all the pirates." Less than fifty 
miles away was Panama with a heavy garrison and 
a thousand or more citizens capable of bearing arms. 
Its governor must have known that the success of the 
raid on Porto Bello would but arouse the English 
lust for a sack of his richer town. But instead of 
seizing the opportunity to crush them when they 
were sodden and stupefied by debauchery he sent 
puerile messages asking to be informed with what 
manner of weapons they could have overcome such 
strong defenses. Morgan naturally replied with an 
insult and a threat to do likewise to Panama within 
a twelvemonth. 

Perhaps it is fair to contrast with Esquemeling' s 
story of the exploit Morgan's official report — for this 
worthy had a royal commission for his deeds. The 
Captain reported that he had left Porto Bello in as 
good condition as he found it, that its people had 
been well treated, so much so that "several ladies of 
great quality and other prisoners who were offered 
their liberty to go to the President's camp refused, 
saying they were now prisoners to a person of quality 



88 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

who was more tender of their honors than they 
doubted to find in the President's camp; and so 
voluntarily continued with him." 

Captain Morgan's own testimony to his kindness 
to prisoners and his regard for female honor im- 
presses one as quite as novel and audacious as his 
brilliant idea of forcing priests and nuns to carry the 
scaling ladders with which to assault a fortress de- 
fended by devout Catholics. Yet except for little 
incidents of this sort the whole crew — Spanish con- 
quistadores, French filibusters and English buc- 
caneers were very tenacious of the forms of religion 
and ostentatious piety. The Spaniards were always 
singing Te Deums, and naming their engines of war 
after the saints ; Captain Daniels, a French filibuster, 
shot dead a sailor for irreverent behavior during 
mass; the English ships had divine service every 
Sunday and profanity and gambling were sometimes 
prohibited in the enlistment articles. All of which 
goes to show that people may be very religious and 
still a pest to humanity — nor is it necessary to turn 
to the buccaneers for instances of this fact. 

Two years of riot at Port Royal emptied the 
pockets of the buccaneers, and they clamored to be 
led once again to the plunder and the sack. Nothing 
loath Morgan sent out word to the gentry whom 
Esquemeling placidly refers to as "the ancient and 
experienced pyrates" and soon gathered to his 
standard — which by the way was not the skull and 



THREE SPANISH STRONGHOLDS 89 

crossbones but the British flag — a valiant array of 
cutthroats. His objective was the City of Panama 
where the Spaniards rested with the gold they stole 
from Peru. His plan was merely to plunder the 
plunderers. In his path stood the castle of San 
Lorenzo at the mouth of the Chagres and to reduce 
this he sent Col. Brodley with about 400 men and 
four ships. 

The visitor to Colon should not fail, before cross- 
ing to the Pacific side of the Isthmus, to visit the 
ruins of the Castle of San Lorenzo. The trip is not 
an easy one, and must usually be arranged for in 
advance, but the end well repays the exertion. The 
easiest way, when the weather permits, is to charter a 
tug or motor boat and make the journey by sea — a 
trip of two or three hours at most. 

To my mind the more interesting way to visit the 
ruins is to take the railroad out to Gatun, and there 
at the very base of the roaring spillway, board a 
power boat and chug down the sluggish Chagres to 
the river's mouth where stands the ancient fort. 
The boats obtainable are not of the most modern 
model and would stand a slender chance in speed 
contests. But in one, however slow, you are lost 
to all appearance of civilization five minutes after 
you cast off from the clay bank. At Gatun, the 
canal which has been carried through the artificial 
lake made by damming the Chagres River, turns 
sharply away from that water-course on the way to 



90 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

the new port of Balboa. The six or eight miles of 
the tropical river which we are to traverse have been 
untouched by the activities of the canal builders. 
The sluggish stream flows between walls of dense 
green jungle, as silent as though behind their barrier 
only a mile or two away there were not men by the 
thousands making great flights of aquatic steps to 
lift the world's ocean carriers over the hills. Once in 
a while through the silent air comes the distant boom 
of a blast in Culebra, only an infrequent reminder 
of the presence of civilized man and his explosive 
activities. Infrequent though it is, however, it has 
been sufficient to frighten away the more timid in- 
habitants of the waterside — the alligators, the boas 
and the monkeys. Only at rare intervals are any of 
these seen now, though in the earher days of the 
American invasion the alligators and monkeys were 
plentiful. Today the chief signs of animal life are 
the birds — herons, white and blue, flying from pool 
to pool or posing artistically on logs or in shallows ; 
great cormorant ducks that fly up and down mid- 
stream, apparently unacquainted with the terrors of 
the shotgun ; kingfishers in bright blue and paroquets 
in gaudy colors. The river is said to be full of fish, 
including sharks, for the water is saline clear up to 
the Gatun locks. 

I know of no spot, easy of access, on the Isthmus 
where an idea of the beauty and the terror of the 
jungle can be better gained than on the lower 



THREE SPANISH STRONGHOLDS 91 

Chagres. The stout green barrier comes flush to the 
water's edge, the mangroves at places wading out on 
their stilt-like roots into the stream like a line of 
deployed skirmishers. That green wall looks light, 
beautiful, ethereal even, but lay your boat alongside 
it and essay to land. You will find it yielding indeed, 
but as impenetrable as a wall of adamant. It will 
receive you as gently as the liquid amber welcomes 
the fly, and hold you as inexorably in its beautiful 
embrace when you are once entrapped. The tender 
fern, the shrinking sensitive plant, the flowering 
shrub, the bending sapling, the sturdy and towering 
tree are all tied together by lithe, serpentine, 
gnarled and imbreakable vines which seem to spring 
from the ground and hang from the highest branches 
as well. There are not enough inches of ground to 
support the vegetation so it grows from the trees 
living literally on the air. Every green thing that 
can bear a thorn seems to have spines and prickers 
to tear the flesh, and to catch the clothing and hold 
the prisoner fast. Try it and you will see why no 
large mammals roam in the jungle ; only the snakes 
and the lizards creeping down below the green tangle 
can attain large size and move. 

And how beautiful it all is ! The green alone would 
be enough, but it is varied by the glowing orange 
poll of a lignum vitae tree, the bright scarlet of the 
hibiscus, the purple of some lordly tree whose name 
the botanist will know but not the wayfarer. Color 



92 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

is in splotches on every side, from the wild flowers 
close to the river's brink to great yellow blossoms on 
the tops of trees so tall that they tower over the 
forests like light-houses visible for miles around. 
Orchids in more delicate shades, orchids that would 
set Fifth Avenue agog, are here to be had for a few 
blows of a machete. It is a riot and a revel of 
color — as gay as the decorations of some ancient 
arena before the gladiatorial combats began. For 
life here is a steady battle too, a struggle between 
man and the jungle and woe to the man who 
invades the enemy's country alone or strays 
far from the trail, shadowy and indistinct as that 
may be. 

"A man ought to be able to live quite a while 
lost in the jungle," said a distinguished magazine 
writer who was with me on the upper Chagres once. 
We had been listening to our guide's description of 
the game, and edible fruits in the forest. 

"Live about two days if he couldn't find the trail 
or the river's bank," was the response of the Man 
Who Knew. "If he lived longer he'd live crazy. 
Torn by thorns, often poisoned, bitten by venomous 
insects, blistered by thirst, with the chances against 
his finding any fruit that was safe eating, he would 
probably die of the pain and of jungle madness 
before starvation brought a more merciful death. 
The jungle is a cat that tortures its captives; a 
python that embraces them in its graceful folds and 



THREE SPANISH STRONGHOLDS 93 

hugs them to death; a siren whose beauty lured 
them to perdition. Look out for it." 

The native Indian knows it and avoids it by doing 
most of his traveHng by canoe. On our trip to 
the river's mouth we passed many in their slender 
cayucas, some tied by a vine to the bank patiently 
fishing, others on their way to or from market with 
craft well loaded with bananas on the way up, but 
light coming back, holding gay converse with each 
other across the dark and sullen stream. Here and 
there through breaks in the foliage we see a native 
house, or a cluster of huts, not many however, for 
the jungle is too thick and the land too low here for 
the Indians who prefer the bluffs and occasional 
broad savannas of the upper waters. As we ap- 
proach its outlet the river, about fifty or sixty yards 
wide thus far, broadens into a considerable estuary, 
and rounding a point we see before us the blue 
Pacific breaking in white foam on a bar which 
effectually closes the river to all save the smallest 
boats, and which you may be sure the United States 
will never dredge away, to open a ready water-way 
to the base of the Gatun locks. To the left covering 
a low point, level as if artificially graded, is a beauti- 
ful cocoanut grove, to the right, across a bay perhaps 
a quarter of a mile wide is a native village of about 
fifty huts with an iron roofed church in the center — 
beyond the village rises a steep hill densely covered 
with verdure, so that it is only by the keenest search- 



94 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

ing that you can pick out here a stone sentry tower, 
there the angle of a massive wall — the ruins of the 
Castle of San Lorenzo. 

''Cloud crested San Lorenzo guards 

The Chagres entrance still, 
Though o'er each stone the moss hath grown 

And earth his moat doth fill. 
His bastions feeble with decay 

Steadfastly view the sea, 
And sternly wait the certain fate 

The ages shall decree." 

We land in the cocoanut grove across the river 
from the ruins we have come to see and the un- 
initiated among us wonder why. It appears, how- 
ever, that the descendants of the natives who so 
readily surrendered dominion of the land to the 
Spaniards are made of sterner stuff than their an- 
cestors. Or perhaps it was because we had neither 
swords or breastplates that they reversed the i6th 
century practice and extorted tribute of silver from 
us for ferrying us across the stream in cayucas when 
our own boats and boat-men would have given us a 
greater sense of security. Landed in the village we 
were convoyed with great ceremony to the alcalde's 
hut where it was demanded that we register our 
names and places of residence. Perhaps that gave 
us a vote in the Republic of Panama, but we saw no 
political evidences about unless a small saloon, in a 
hut thatched with palmetto leaves and with a mud 



THREE SPANISH STRONGHOLDS 95 

floor and basketwork sides might be taken for a 
"headquarters." Indeed the saloon and a frame 
church were about the only signs of civilization about 
the town if we except a bill posted in the alcalde's 
office setting forth the mysterious occult powers of 
a wizard and soothsayer who, among other services 
to mankind, recounted a number of rich marriages 
which had been made by the aid of his philters and 
spells. 

We made our way from the village attended by 
volunteer guides in the scantiest of clothing, across 
a little runway at the bottom of a ravine, and so into 
the path that leads up the height crowned by the 
castle. It was two hundred and fifty years ago, 
almost, that the little hollow ran with a crimson 
fluid, and the bodies of dead Spaniards lay in the 
rivulet where now the little native boys are cooling 
their feet. The path is steep, rugged and narrow. 
Branches arch overhead and as the trail has served 
as a runway for the downpour of innumerable tropical 
rains the soil is largely washed away from between 
the stones, and the climbing is hard. 

"Not much fun carrying a steel helmet, a heavy 
leather jacket and a twenty-pound blimderbuss up 
this road on a hot day, with bullets and arrows 
whistling past," remarks a heavy man in the van, 
and the picture he conjures up of the Spanish assail- 
ants on that hot afternoon in 1 780 seems very vivid. 
Although the fort, the remains of which are now 



96 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

standing, is not the one which Morgan destroyed, 
the site, the natural defenses and the plan of the 
works are identical. There was more wood in the 
original fort than in that of which the remains are 
now discernible — to which fact its capture was due. 

The villagers every now and then cut away the 
dense underbrush which grows in the ancient fosse 
and traverses and conceals effectually the general 
plan of the fortress from the visitor. This cleaning 
up process unveils to the eye the massive masonry, 
and the towering battlements as shown by some of 
the illustrations here printed. But, except to the 
scientific student of archaeology and of fortification, 
the ruins are more picturesque as they were when I 
saw them, overgrown with creeping vines and shrubs 
jutting out from every cornice and crevice, with the 
walls so masked by the green curtain that when 
some sharp salient angle boldly juts out before 
you, you start as you would if rounding the corner 
of the Flatiron Building you should come upon a 
cocoanut palm bending in the breeze. Here you 
come to great vaulted chambers, dungeons lighted 
by but one barred casemate where on the muddy 
ground you see rusty iron fetters weighing forty 
pounds or more to clamp about a prisoner's ankle 
or, for that matter, his neck. 

The vaulted brick ceiling above is as perfect as 
the day Spanish builders shaped it and the mortar 
betwixt the great stones forming the walls is too 



THREE SPANISH STRONGHOLDS 97 

hard to be picked away with a stout knife. Pushing 
through the thicket which covers every open space 
you stumble over a dismounted cannon, or a neat 
conical pile of rusty cannon balls, carefully prepared 
for the shock of battle perhaps two hundred years 
ago and lying in peaceful slumber ever since — a real 
Rip Van Winkle of a fortress it is, with no likelihood 
of any rude awakening. In one spot seems to have 
been a sort of central square. In the very heart of 
the citadel is a great masonry tank to hold drinking 
water for the besieged. It was built before the 19th 
century had made its entrance upon the procession 
of the centuries, but the day I saw it the still water 
that it held reflected the fleecy clouds in the blue 
sky, and no drop trickled through the joints of the 
honest and ancient masonry. Back and forth 
through narrow gates, in and out of vaulted 
chambers, down dark passages behind twenty-foot 
walls you wander, with but little idea of the topog- 
raphy of the place until you come to a little watch 
tower jutting out at one corner of the wall. Here 
the land falls away sharply a hundred feet or more 
to the sea and you understand why the buccaneers 
were forced to attack from the landward side, 
though even that is steep. 

If the British had hoped to take the garrison by 
surprise they were speedily undeceived. Hardly 
had they emerged from the thicket into the open 
space on which stands now the village of Chagres 



98 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

than they were welcomed with so hot a volley of 
musketry and artillery from the castle walls that 
many fell dead at the first fire. To assault they 
had to cross a ravine, charge up a bare hillside, and 
pass through a ditch thirty feet deep at the further 
bank of which stood the outer walls of the fort made 
of timber and clay. It was two in the afternoon 
when the fighting began. The buccaneers charged 
with their usual daredevil valor, carrying fire balls 
along with their swords and muskets. The Span- 
iards met them with no less determination, crying 
out: 

"Come on, ye Englishmen, enemies to God and 
our King; let your other companions that are be- 
hind come too; ye shall not go to Panama this 
bout." 

All the afternoon and into the night the battle 
raged and the assailants might well have despaired 
of success except for an event which Esquemeling 
thus describes: 

"One of the Pirates was wounded with an arrow 
in his back which pierced his body to the other side. 
This instantly he pulled out with great valor at the 
side of his breast; then taking a little cotton that 
he had about him, he wound it about the said 
arrow, and putting it into his musket, he shot it 
back into the castle. But the cotton being kindled 
by the powder occasioned two or three houses that 
were within the castle, being thatched with palm 



THREE SPANISH STRONGHOLDS 99 

leaves, to take fire, which the Spaniards perceived 
not so soon as was necessary. For this fire meeting 
with a parcel of powder blew it up, and hereby 
caused great ruin, and no less consternation to the 
Spaniards, who were not able to account for this 
accident, not having seen the beginning thereof." 

The fire within the fort not only disconcerted its 
defenders but greatly aided the assailants, for by its 
flames the Spaniards could be seen working their 
guns and were picked off by the British sharp- 
shooters. The artillery of the invaders made 
breaches in the walls and the debris thus occasioned 
dropped into the ditch making its crossing practi- 
cable for a storming party. Though the gallant 
governor of the castle threw himself into the breach 
and fought with the greatest desperation, he was 
forced back and into his citadel. There a musket 
shot pierced his brain and the defense which was 
becoming a defeat became in fact a rout. Spaniards 
flung themselves from the lofty cliffs upon the rocks 
below or into the sea rather than trust to the mercy 
of their conquerors. All but thirty of the garrison 
of 314 were slain, not one officer escaping, and only 
a few escaped to steal up the river and through the 
jungle carrying to Panama the dismal tale of the 
fall of its chief outpost. 

Nor did the British win their triumph easily. 
Their force was in the neighborhood of 400, of whom 
more than 100 were killed and 70 wounded. A round 



100 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

shot took off both legs of Colonel Brodley and from 
the wound he died a few days later. The church of 
the castle was turned into a hospital and the Span- 
iards were made to bury their own dead, which was 
done by dropping them over the cliff into the sea. 
Word was then sent to Morgan that the way was 
clear for his march upon Panama. A week later 
that worthy with his force of about 800 more men 
appeared at Lorenzo and began preparations for 
the march on Panama. 

The city which awaited him had been founded in 
1 5 19 by that Pedrarias of whom we have told as 
the executioner of Balboa. It had grown rapidly, 
built up by the trade resulting from the invasion 
of Peru. At the time of Morgan's raid Esquemeling 
writes of the city: 

"There belonged to this city (which is also the 
head of a bishopric) eight monasteries, whereof 
seven were for men and one for women; two stately 
churches and one hospital. The churches and 
monasteries were all richly adorned with altar-pieces 
and paintings, huge quantity of gold and silver, with 
other precious things. . . . Besides which orna- 
ments, here were to be seen two thousand houses 
of magnificent and prodigious building, being all of 
the greatest part inhabited by merchants of that 
country, who are vastly rich. For the rest of the 
inhabitants of lesser quality and tradesmen, this city 
contained five thousand houses more. Here were also 




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PORTO BELLO FROM ACROSS THE BAY 



THREE SPANISH STRONGHOLDS loi 

great numbers of stables, which served for the horses 
and mules, that carry all the plate, belonging as well 
unto the King of Spain as to private men, toward 
the coast of the North Sea. The neighboring fields 
belonging to this city are all cultivated and fertile 
plantations, and pleasant gardens, which afford 
delicious prospects unto the inhabitants the whole 
year long." 

Such was the town which Morgan raided. Be- 
cause of the colossal disaster which befel it, a 
disaster without parallel since the days when the 
Goths and Vandals swept down over the pleasant 
plains of Italy, there has been a tendency to magnify 
the size, wealth and refinement of Panama at the 
time of its fall. But studied calmly, with no desire 
to exaggerate the qualities which made it so rich 
a prize, Panama may fairly be described as a city 
of about 30,0CK> people, with massive churches, 
convents and official buildings of masonry, with 
many stately houses of the type esteemed luxurious 
in the tropics, and peopled largely by pure-blooded 
Spaniards of the better type. It was too early a 
date for the amalgamation of races now so much 
in evidence on the Isthmus to have proceeded far, 
and the ancient records show that the Spaniards of 
substance in the town had mainly come thither from 
Seville. 

Morgan started up the river from San Lorenzo, 
where he left 500 men to serve as a garrison, on the 



102 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

1 8th of January, 1761. His force comprised 1200 
men in five boats with artillery and thirty-two 
canoes. The raiders planned to live on the country 
and hence took small stores of provisions — an error 
which nearly wrecked the expedition. For the 
Spaniards and Indians swept the country clear of 
all food, and had they shown equal zeal in harassing 
the starving buccaneers in the march no sufficient 
force to have taken the city would ever have reached 
Panama. Leather pounded between stones "to 
make it tender" and vagrant dogs and cats foimd 
in deserted villages were all the food the invaders 
had for eight days. 

Gaining on the ninth day of their march the top 
of a hill, still known as "El Cerro de los Bucca- 
neeros" (The Hill of the Buccaneers), the pirates 
had the joy of seeing for the first time the Pacific, 
and thus knowing that Panama must be at hand. 
Upon the plain below they came upon a great body 
of cattle which they slaughtered and devoured. 

Esquemeling's description of the banquet on the 
plains is hardly appetizing: 

"Here while some were employed in killing and 
flaying cows, horses, bulls and chiefly asses, of which 
there was greatest number, others busied themselves 
in kindling of fires and getting wood wherewith to 
roast them. Thus cutting the flesh of these animals 
into pieces, or gobbets, they threw them into the 
fiire, and half carbonadoed or roasted, they devoured 



THREE SPANISH STRONGHOLDS 103 

them with incredible haste and appetite. For such 
was their hunger that they more resembled cannibals 
than Europeans at this banquet, the blood many 
times running down from their beards to the middle 
of their bodies." 

Gorged to their gullets, the cutthroats lay down to 
rest. Morgan had a sharp watch kept, and sounded 
at least one false alarm that the men might not 
sleep too securely. But the Spaniards on the eve 
of their crushing disaster left their foes to rest in 
peace except for a noisy cannonade which did no 
damage, and shouts of "Corros! Nos Veremos" — 
"Dogs! We will see you again," which they cer- 
tainly did, finding the meeting most impleasant. 

The Spanish defense of the city was childish, 
impotent and futile. There were two spectacular 
changes of cavalry — the Rough-riders of the day — 
from which much was expected. But as the ground 
had not been reconnoitered the cavaliers could not 
reach the pirates lines and were shot down in their 
saddles with scarce an opportunity to use their 
swords. Then 1000 "wild and ferocious bulls" 
were driven against the enemy by fifty yelling 
Vaqueros, cracking their whips and inviting the 
plaudits of all beholders. The buccaneers ignored 
the bulls and shot the Vaqueros. The bulls reHeved 
of the turmoil placidly stopped to graze on the Sa- 
vanna. They were the same type of bull that made 
latter day buU-fighting in Panama a dismal spectacle. 



104 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

It might have been expected that the Spaniards 
with a city full of women to defend against the most 
brutalized off-scourings of the seas would have 
fought with desperate valor. Instead, after a futile 
battle they allowed the pirates to sleep quietly in 
the open all night. Fatigued with eight days of 
marching on starvation rations the invaders might 
have been destroyed but the Spaniards trusted all 
to tomorrow — a tendency not yet vanished from 
the race. 

One would think that the final defense would have 
been dogged and desperate in the extreme. The 
Spaniards knew what to expect in the way of mur- 
der, rapine, plunder and enslavement. They had 
the story of Porto Bello fresh in their memories, and, 
for that matter, they had enjoyed such fruits of 
victory themselves too often to hug the delusion 
that these victors would forego them. Nor even 
after the decisive thrashing they had sustained on 
the plain need they have despaired. On three sides 
Panama was defended by the sea and its inlets, and 
on the fourth could only be approached along a 
single road and over an arched bridge, the sturdy 
masonry of which still stands, and forms a favorite 
background for photographic groups of tourists. 
Though not walled, as was its successor. Old Panama 
had a great plenty of heavy masonry buildings, the 
ruins of which show them to have been constructed 
with a view to defense. The churches, the eight 



THREE SPANISH STRONGHOLDS 105 

convents, the official buildings and many of the 
private residences were built of stone with heavy 
barred windows and, if stoutly defended in conjunc- 
tion with barricades in the streets, might well have 
balked the invaders of their prey. But the Spanish 
spirit seemed crushed by the defeat of their choice 
cavalry on the Savanna, and three hours sufficed for 
the British to make themselves masters of the whole 
city. During the fighting flames broke out in several 
quarters of the town, some think set purposely by 
the assailants, which was denied by Morgan. How- 
ever caused, the fires raged for days, were still 
smoldering when the buccaneers left three weeks 
later, and consumed nearly all except the masonry 
edifices in the city. 

Imagination balks at the effort to conceive the 
wretched plight of the 30,000 people of this city, 
subjected for three weeks to the cruelty, cupidity 
and lust of the "experienced and ancient pyrates" 
and the cutthroats of all nationalities that made up 
the command of Morgan. Little more than a 
thousand of the raiders could have remained alive, 
but all the fighting men of the city were slain, 
wounded or cowed into unmanly subjection. After 
the first riotous orgy of drunkenness and rapine — 
though indeed Morgan shrewdly strove to keep his 
men sober by spreading the report that all the wine 
had been poisoned — the business of looting was 
taken up seriously. After the obvious action of 



io6 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

stealing everything in sight from the golden chalices 
of the churches to the rings on a woman's hand, the 
marauders proceeded by the pleasant expedient of 
torture to uncover all that was concealed. When 
all possible shame, ignominy and agony had been 
inflicted upon the unhappy people, Captain Morgan 
departed from the ruins of Panama. 

"Of the spoils whereof," says Esquemeling, "he 
carried with him one hundred and seventy-five 
beasts of carriage, laden with silver, gold and other 
precious things, besides 600 prisoners more or less, 
between women, children and slaves." 

So they plodded back to San Lorenzo whence 
they had started on their piratical expedition. It 
affords a striking illustration of the strictly business 
methods of these pirates that before reaching the 
castle Morgan ordered a halt, and had every man 
searched for valuables, submitting himself to the 
inquisition. So thorough was the search that even 
the guns were shaken, upside down, lest precious 
stones might be concealed in their barrels. The 
loot of the Panama expedition has been reckoned 
at several million dollars, and indeed a town of that 
size, famous for wealth and at a period when the 
amassing of gold and jewels was a passion, should 
certainly have produced that much. 

But when it came to the vital operation of divid- 
ing the spoils the ordinary fighting men found that 
for all their risk, their daring, their wounds, if they 



THREE SPANISH STRONGHOLDS 107 

so suffered, their hunger and fatigue during a more 
than four months' campaign, they received about $100 
apiece. ' ' Which small sum, "says the literary apothe- 
cary Esquemeling, who was "buncoed " with the rest, 
"they thought too little reward for so much labor 
and such huge and manifest dangers they had so 
often exposed their lives unto. But Captain Morgan 
was deaf to all these and many other complaints of 
this kind, having designed in his mind to cheat them 
of as much as he could." 

Henry Morgan was indeed a practical pirate, who, 
had he but lived four hundred years later, could have 
made vastly more money out of a town of 30,000 
people by the mild devices of franchises and bonds, 
than he did out of Panam.a with murder, the rack, 
robbery and rapine for his methods. After setting 
the example of loyally putting his all into the com- 
mon store, he assumed the duty of dividing that 
store. This accomplished to his liking, and knowing 
that idleness breeds discontent, and that discontent 
is always hiu-tful to capital, he set his men to work 
pulling the Castle of San Lorenzo to pieces. While 
they were thus engaged, one dark night with favoring 
winds he hove anchor and with four ships, filled with 
his English favorites, and laden with the lion's share 
of the booty, he sailed away from Chagres and from 
buccaneering forever. He left behind all the French, 
Dutch and mongrel pirates — those ancient and ex- 
perienced ones. 



io8 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

If England was embarrassed by his excursion 
under the British flag into the territory of a friendly 
nation the fact was concealed. The King accepted 
his share of the swag and made the buccaneer a 
baronet. But the affair was a little too audacious 
to bear repetition, so all other buccaneers were out- 
lawed and Henry Morgan was entrusted with their 
destruction — somewhat on the principle that leads 
us to put politicians on our civil service boards and 
invite protected manufacturers to aid in the revision 
of the tariff. 

The ruins of Old Panama are one of the show 
places of the Isthmus today. To reach them you 
take a horse, a carriage or an automobile for a ride 
of about five miles over an excellent road laid and 
maintained by the Republic of Panama. If you 
go by horseback the old trail which the pirates used 
is still traceable and at low tide one can ride along 
the beach. For the majority the drive along the 
road, which should be taken in the early morning, 
is the simpler way, though there was promise in 
191 3 that within a few months a trolley line would 
still further simplify the trip. 

From Balboa, the Pacific opening of the Panama 
Canal, and the newest of the world's great ports, to 
the ruins of Old Panama, founded in 1609 and ob- 
literated by pirates in 1671, by trolley in two hours! 
Was ever the past more audaciously linked to the 
present? Were ever exhibits of the peaceful com- 



THREE SPANISH STRONGHOLDS 109 

merce of today and the bloody raids of ancient 
times placed in such dramatic juxtaposition? 

The road to Old Panama runs through a peaceful 
grazing country, with a very few plantations. One 
or two country residences of prosperous Panamanians 
appear standing well back from the road, but signs of 
life and of industry are few. The country lies high, 
is open and free from jungle and in almost any 
North American state, lying thus close to a town of 
40,000 people and adjacent to a district in which the 
United States is spending some millions of dollars a 
month, would be platted in additions for miles 
around, and dotted with the signs of real estate 
dealers. But the Panamanian mind is not specula- 
tive, or at any rate soars little above the weekly 
lottery ticket. So all Uncle Samuel's disbursements 
in the Zone have thus far produced nothing remotely 
resembling a real estate boom. 

However, as we turn off from the main road 
toward the sea and the square broken tower of the 
old cathedral, or Church of St. Augustine, with the 
ferns springing from the jagged top, and vines 
twisting out through the dumbly staring windows, 
real estate and "booms" seem singularly ignoble 
topics in the presence of this mute spectator of the 
agonies of a martyred people. For even the dulling 
mists of the interposing centuries, even our feeling 
that the Spaniards suffered only the anguish and 
the torments which they had themselves meted out 



no PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

to the real owners of the lands they had seized upon, 
cannot wholly blunt the sense of pity for the women 
and children, for the husbands and fathers in the 
city which fell under Morgan's blight. It would 
be no easy task to gather in the worst purlieus of 
any American city today a band so wholly lost to 
shame, to pity and to God as the ruffians who 
followed Morgan. What they did to the people on 
whom their hands reeking with blood were laid must 
be left to the imagination. The only contemporary 
record of the sack was written by one of their own 
number to whom apparently such scenes had become 
commonplace, for while his gorge rises at the con- 
templation of his own hard fortune in being robbed 
and deserted by his chief, he recounts the torture of 
men and the violation of women in a matter-of-fact 
way as though all in the day's work. 

Driving on we come to the arched bridge which 
formed the main entrance to the town in the day of 
its downfall. Sturdy it is still, though the public 
road no longer passes over it; defying the assaults 
of time and the more disintegrating inroads of the 
tropical plants which insinuate themselves into every 
crevice, prying the stone apart with tender fingers 
ever hardening. At once the bridge, none too wide 
for three to cross abreast, awakens wonder that no 
Horatius was in all the Spanish armies to keep the 
bridge as did he of ancient Rome. But after all 
the rividet which today makes its sluggish way under 



THREE SPANISH STRONGHOLDS in 

the arch is no Tiber to hold the invading army at 
bay. Perhaps it was bigger in Morgan's time ; today 
it would be easily forded, almost leapt. At any 
rate no "Dauntless Three" like those Macaulay 
sung were there to stay the enrolling tide of foemen. 

Hardly have we passed the bridge than a massive 
vine-embedded ruin on the left of the road stands 
mute evidence that the Spaniards had forts, if they 
had but possessed the courage to defend them. This 
is the Casa Reale, or government house. Its walls 
of rubble masonry are full two feet thick and have 
the appearance of having been pierced for musketry. 
If the buccaneers had any artillery at all, which is 
doubtful, it was hardly heavy enough to have had 
any effect against such a wall. Secure within the 
Casa Reale such a handful of men as held the Alamo 
against the Mexicans could have resisted Morgan's 
men indefinitely. But the spirit was lacking. 

Continuing toward the sea the visitor next comes 
upon the ruins of the Cathedral, which are in so 
shattered a state as to justify the belief that either 
the invaders or the Spaniards themselves employed 
gunpowder to wreck so massive an edifice. The 
flames and the work of the vegetation could hardly 
have accomplished such complete destruction. The 
tower alone retains definite form, rising about fifty 
feet from a dense jungle, and lined within with vines 
and clinging trees that use the ancient walls as a 
support and hasten their disintegration in so doing. 



112 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

It is difficult even to trace the lines of the great 
church, so thoroughly have its walls been demolished. 
Some of the massive arches still stand all pendulous 
with vines. 

At the water's edge one still finds steps leading 
down into the sea, and the remains of the old paved 
road to which at high tide the boats could come with 
their cargoes of fish and country produce. If one 
happens to visit the spot at low tide the view looking 
seaward is as ugly as could well be imagined. The 
hard sand beach extends only to high water mark. 
Beyond that for more than a mile seaward extends a 
dismal range of black mud of about the consistency 
of putty. Near the shore it is seen to be full of 
round holes from which crawl unsightly worms and 
small crabs. E. C. Stedman puts its unsightly 
appearance in two lines: 

"The tide still ebbs a league from quay, 
The buzzards scour the empty bay." 




CHAPTER IV 

REVOLUTIONS AND THE FRENCH REGIME 

1HE history of the Isthmus from the fall of 
Old Panama to the time when the government 
of the United States, without any particular 
pomp or ceremony, took up the picks and shovels 
the French had laid down and went to work on the 
Canal, may be passed over here in the lightest and 
sketchiest way. It is of Panama of the Present, 
rather than Panama of the Past, that I have to 
tell even though that past be full of picturesque and 
racy incident. 

The search for the natural waterway had hardly 
been abandoned when discussion arose as to the 
practicability of creating an artificial one. In its 
earlier days this project encountered not only the 
physical obstacles which we had to overcome, but 
others springing from the rather exaggerated piety 
of the time. Yet it was a chaplain to Cortez who 
first suggested a canal to Philip II of Spain in words 
that have a good twentieth-century ring to them, 
though their form be archaic: "It is true," he 
wrote, "that mountains obstruct these passes, but 
if there be mountains there are also hands." That 
is the spirit in which Uncle Sam approached the Big 

113 



114 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

Job. But when the sturdy chaplain's appeal came 
to King Philip he referred it to the priests of his 
council, who ruled it out upon the scriptural injunc- 
tion, "What God hath joined together let no man 
put asimder," and they were backed up by a learned 
prelate on the Isthmus, Fray Josef de Acosta, who 
averred, "No human power will suffice to demolish 
the most strong and impenetrable moimtains, and 
solid rocks which God has placed between the two 
seas, and which sustain the fury of the two oceans. 
And when it would be to men possible it would in 
my opinion be very proper to fear the chastisement 
of heaven for wishing to correct the works which 
the Creator with the greatest deliberation and fore- 
sight ordained in the creation of this universe." 

Doubtless the Fray de Acosta was the more ortho- 
dox, but we like better the spirit of the cleric who 
held the somewhat difficult post of spiritual adviser 
to Cortez. His belief that "if there are mountains 
there are also hands" is good doctrine, and we can 
believe that the good father would have liked to have 
seen some of Col. Goethal's steam shovels biting 
into those mountains at five cubic yards a bite. 

The only serious effort at colonization on the 
Isthmus, aside from those of the Spaniards, was 
curiously enough a Scotch enterprise. It failed 
miserably. Lord Macaulay said, "It was folly to 
suppose that men bom and bred within ten degrees 
of the Arctic circle would enjoy excellent health 



REVOLUTIONS AND THE FRENCH 115 

within ten degrees of the equator." But the real 
trouble was more deep-seated. It was the story — 
old even then — of the hopeless fight of competition 
against an established monopoly. William Patter- 
son, once a Scotch minister, then the founder and 
a director of the Bank of England, looked with envy 
upon the power and profits of the British East 
India Company. Taking it for a model he secured 
a Scotch charter for a similar company giving him 
a monopoly of Scottish trade in the East Indies. 
The old company fought him; outlawed his company 
in England and persuaded the King to frown on 
his enterprise. Dissensions broke out within the 
company. The church and the kirk factions — 
Episcopalians and Presbyterians — fell fighting 
among themselves. Graft played its part. When 
the first ships were far out at sea it was discovered 
that the six months' provisions they had paid for 
would scarce last two. They settled on the Atlantic 
side of the Darien — the more unhealthy side — 
calling their colony New Caledonia. The only evil 
they escaped was the hostility of the Indians, who, 
on the contrary welcomed them warmly, thinking 
they had come to make war on the hated Spaniards. 
The new colonists, however, had pluck and settled 
down to make the colony a success. According to 
the records they had brought five forces for disin- 
tegration and failure along with them — namely, four 
ministers and a most prodigious lot of brandy. The 



Ii6 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

ancient chronicles do not say upon which of these 
rests the most blame for the disasters that followed. 
The ministers straightway set up to be rulers of 
the colony. When stockades should be a-building 
all were engaged in erecting houses for them. As 
but two could preach in the space of one Sunday, 
they designated two holy days weekly whereon they 
preached such resounding sermons that "the regular 
service frequently lasted twelve hours without any 
interruption." Nor would they do other work than 
sermonizing. As for the brandy, all the records of 
the colony agree that much too much of it and of 
the curious native drinks was used by all, and that 
the ministers themselves were wont to reinvigorate 
themselves after their pulpit exertions by mighty 
potations. 

Three expeditions were sent to maintain the 
colony, and though the deaths were many, it grew 
to such a point that the King of Spain became 
alarmed and sent eight Spanish men-of-war to make 
an end of these interlopers — the King of England 
and Scotland coldly leaving them to their fate. But 
they fought so bravely that in the end the Spanish, 
though their fleet had been reenforced by three 
ships, were obliged to grant them capitulation with 
the honors of war, and they "marched out with 
their colors flying and drums beating, together with 
arms and ammunition, and with all their goods." 

So ended the effort to make of Darien an outpost 



REVOLUTIONS AND THE FRENCH 117 

of Scotland. In the effort 2000 lives and over 
£200,000 had been lost. 

After the expulsion of the Scotch, the domination 
of the Isthmus by the Spaniards was never again 
seriously menaced by any foreign power. All the 
vast South and Central American domain was lost 
to Spain, not by the attacks of her Eiiropean 
neighbors, but by the revolt of their people against 
a government which was at one time inefficient 
and tyrannical. The French Revolution and the 
Napoleonic upheaval in Europe found their echo in 
South America, where one after another the various 
states threw off the Spanish yoke. But Panama, 
then known as Terra Firma, was slow to join in the 
revolutionary activities of her neighbors. It is true 
that in 18 12 the revolutionists became so active in 
Bogota, the capital of the province, that the seat of 
government was temporarily removed to Panama 
City. But the country as a whole was sluggish. 

Four classes of citizens, European Spaniards, their 
sons, born on the Isthmus, and called Creoles, the 
Indians and the negroes, made up the population 
and were too diverse by birth and nature to unite 
for any patriotic purpose. Accordingly through 
the period of breaking shackles, which made Bolivar 
famous the world over and created the great group 
of republics in South America, the state of which the 
Isthmus was a part remained quiescent. But all 
the time the revolutionary leaven was working be- 



Ii8 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

neath the surface, and early in 1822 Panama became 
a Department in the RepubHc of Colombia. 

It would be idle to describe, even to enumerate, all 
the revolutions which have disquieted the Isthmus 
since it first joined Colombia in repudiating the 
Spanish rule. They have been as thick as insects 
in the jungle. No physical, social or commercial 
ties bound Panama to Colombia at any time during 
their long association. A mountain range divided 
the two countries and between the cities of Panama 
and Bogota there was no communication by land. 
In foreign commerce the province of Panama ex- 
ceeded the parent state, while the possession of the 
shortest route across the Isthmus was an asset of 
which both Bogotans and Panamanians keenly 
realized the value. 

Revolutions were annual occurrences, sometimes 
hard fought, for the people of Panama have plenty 
of courage in the field; sometimes ended with the 
first battle. The name of the parent state has been 
sometimes Colombia, sometimes New Granada; 
Panama has at times been independent, at others a 
state of the Federation of New Granada ; at one time 
briefly allied with Ecuador and Venezuela. In 1846 
the volume of North American travel across the 
Isthmus became so great that the United States 
entered into a treaty with New Granada in which 
we guaranteed to keep the Isthmus open for transit. 
That and the building, by American capital of the 



REVOLUTIONS AND THE FRENCH 119 

Panama Railroad, made us a directly interested 
party in all subsequent revolutions. Of these there 
were plenty. President Theodore Roosevelt de- 
fending in 1903 the diplomatic methods by which 
he "took" Panama, enumerated no fewer than 
fifty-three revolutions in the fifty-seven years that 
had elapsed since the signing of the treaty. He 
summed up the situation thus: 

"The above is only a partial list of the revolu- 
tions, rebellions, insiirrections, riots, and other out- 
breaks that have occurred during the period in 
question, yet they number fifty-three for the last 
fifty-seven years. It will be noted that one of them 
lasted nearly three years before it was quelled; 
another for nearly a year. In short, the experience 
of nearly half a century has shown Colombia to be 
utterly incapable of keeping order on the Isthmus. 
Only the active interference of the United States 
has enabled her to preserve so much as a semblance 
of sovereignty. Had it not been for the exercise 
by the United States of the police power in her 
interest, her connection with the Isthmus would 
have been severed long ago". 

The honor of actually inaugurating the canal 
work must ever belong to the French, as the honor 
of completing it will accrue to us. It is not the first 
time either that the French and the Americans 
worked together to accomplish something on this 
continent. Yorktown and Panama ought to be re- 



120 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

garded as chapters of the story of a long partner- 
ship. In 1876 Ferdinand de Lesseps, with the 
glory of having dug the Suez Canal still untarnished, 
became interested in the Panama situation as the 
result of representations made by a French engineer, 
Napoleon B. Wyse. Lieut. Wyse had made a 
survey of the Isthmus and, in connection with 
Gen. Stephen Turr, a Hungarian, had secured a 
concession from Colombia to run ninety-nine years 
after the completion of the Canal, with a payment 
to Colombia of $250,000 annually after the seventy- 
fifth year had expired. This franchise was transfer- 
able by sale to any other private company but could 
not be sold to a government — a proviso which later 
complicated greatly the negotiations with the United 
States. 

De Lesseps was instantly interested. The honors 
which had been heaped upon him as the result of 
his successful operation at Suez were very grateful 
to him. The French temperament is particularly 
avid of praise and public honor. Moreover, he 
sincerely believed in the practicability of the plan 
and, neither at the outset or later, did any one fully 
enlighten him as to the prodigious obstacles to be 
encountered. Lieut. Wyse had interested a group 
of financiers who scented in the scheme a chance 
for great profits, and to their project the name of 
De Lesseps was all important. For advertising pur- 
poses it had the value of that of Roosevelt today. 



REVOLUTIONS AND THE FRENCH 121 

To launch the project successftilly money was 
needed and this they found. To give an inter- 
national air, and scientific endorsement, they called 
an International Scientific Congress which met at 
Paris and passed all the resolutions De Lesseps 
desired. They do say it was scientifically "packed", 
but that is of no importance today. It is interesting, 
however, to record that a majority of the Conference 
voted for a sea-level type of canal, though a majority 
of the delegates who were practical engineers favored 
the lock type. That divergence of opinion exists 
today. Though the United States has built a lock 
canal there are many who deplore the decision, and 
not a few who believe that it will still be dug down 
to sea level and become the Straits of Panama 
instead of the Panama Canal. 

With the preliminaries once completed the stock 
in a block of $60,000,000 was offered to the French 
people. It was largely oversubscribed. The 
French are at once a thrifty and an emotional 
people. Their thrift gives them instant command 
of such sums of ready cash as astound financiers 
of other nations. Their emotionalism leads them 
to support any great national enterprise that 
promises glory for La Patrie, has in it a touch of 
romance and withal seems economically safe. The 
canal enterprise at the outset met all these condi- 
tions, and the commanding figure of De Lesseps at 
its head, the man who had made Africa an island 



122 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

and who dogmatically declared, "the Panama Canal 
will be more easily begun, finished and maintained 
than the Suez Canal", lured the francs from their 
hiding places in woolen stockings or under loose 
hearthstones. 

It has been the practice of many writers upon the 
Canal to ridicule the unsuccessful effort of the French 
to complete it; to expatiate upon the theatrical dis- 
play which attended their earlier operations, and 
the reckless extravagance which attended the period 
when the dire possibility of failure first appeared to 
their vision; to overlook the earnest and effective 
work done by the Frenchmen actually on the Isth- 
mus while riveting attention on the blackmailers 
and parasites in Paris who were destroying the 
structure at its very foundations. It is significant 
that none of the real workers on the Canal do this. 
Talk with the engineers and you will find them 
enthusiastic over the engineering work done by the 
French. Those sturdy, alert Americans who are 
now putting the Big Job through will take pains to 
give their predecessors the fullest credit for work 
done, for dirt moved, for surveys made and for 
machinery designed — a great lot of it is in use on 
the line today, including machines left exposed in 
the jungle twenty years. Hundreds of their build- 
ings are still in use. If, after listening to the honest 
and generous praise expressed by our engineers, the 
visitor will go out to the cemetery of Mount Hope, 



REVOLUTIONS AND THE FRENCH 123 

near Cristobal, and read the lines on the headstones 
of French boys who came out full of hope and ambi- 
tion to be cut down at twenty- two, twenty-five — all 
boyish ages — he will reflect that it is ill to laugh 
because the forlorn hope does not carry the breast- 
works, but only opens the way for the main army. 
And there are many little French graveyards scat- 
tered about the Isthmus which make one who comes 
upon them unawares feel that the really vital thing 
about the French connection with the Canal was 
not that the first blast which it had been prepared 
to celebrate with some pomp failed to explode, or 
that the young engineers did not understand that 
champagne mixed but badly with a humid and 
malarial climate, but that the flower of a great and 
generous nation gave their lives in a struggle with 
hostile nature before science had equipped man with 
the knowledge to make the struggle equal. 

Today along a great part of our canal line the 
marks of the French attainments are apparent. 
From Limon Bay, at the Atlantic end of the Canal, 
our engineers for some reason determined upon an 
entirely new line for our Canal, instead of following 
the French waterway, which was dug for seven miles 
to a depth of fifteen feet, and for eight miles further, 
seven feet deep. This canal has been used very 
largely by our force in carrying material for the 
Gatun dam. At the Pacific entrance they had dug 
a narrow channel three miles long which we are still 



124 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

using. We paid the French company $40,000,000 
for all its rights on the Isthmus. There are various 
rumors as to who got the money. Some, it is 
believed, never went far from New York, for with 
all their thrift the French are no match for our high 
financiers. But whoever got the money we got a 
good bargain. The estimate of our own commission 
in 191 1 values the physical property thus trans- 
ferred at $42,799,826. 

The records of the French regime teem with 
stories of needless ceremonies, reckless extravagances 
and cool misrepresentations all necessary in order 
to keep up the market for stock. One great cause 
of the French failure was the fact that the enterprise 
was dependent upon the stock market for support, 
and that in turn was dependent upon the investors 
who demanded to be shown a profit. The United 
States has succeeded because the element of profit 
has not entered into its calculations. 

Disease on the Isthmus cooperated with distrust 
in Paris to bring about failure. The French in 1880 
knew nothing of the modern scientific systems for 
checking yellow-fever contagion and the spread of 
malaria. The part mosquitoes play as carriers of 
disease germs was not dreamed of. Beyond building 
excellent hospitals for the sick, some of which we 
still use, and dosing both sick and well liberally 
with quinine, they had no plan of campaign against 
"Yellow Jack." As a result, death stalked grimly 



REVOLUTIONS AND THE FRENCH 125 

among them, and the stories written of his ravages 
are ghastly. On the south side of Ancon Hill, where 
the quarry has gashed the hillside, stood, until 
recently, a large frame house, built for Jules Dingier, 
first director-general of canal work. It cost $150,- 
000, though perhaps worth a third of that sum, 
and was called "La Folic Dingier." But it was a 
rather tragic folly for poor Dingier, for before he 
had fairly moved into it his wife, son and daughter 
died of yellow fever and he returned to Paris to 
die too of a broken heart. His house, in which he 
anticipated such happiness, became a smallpox 
hospital, and was finally sold for $25 with the 
stipulation that the piu-chaser remove it. 

A dinner was given M. Henri Boinne, secretary- 
general of the company. Some one remarked that 
there were thirteen at the table, whereupon the 
guest of honor remarked gaily that as he was the 
last to come he would have to pay for all. In two 
weeks he was dead — yellow fever. Others at the 
dinner followed him. Of the members of one sur- 
veying party on the upper waters of the Chagres — ■ 
a region I myself visited without a suggestion of ill 
effects — every one, twenty- two in all, were pros- 
trated by disease and ten died. Bunau-Varilla, 
whose name is closely linked with the Canal, says: 
"Out of every one hundred individuals arriving on 
the Isthmus, I can say without exaggeration that 
only twenty have been able to remain at their posts, 



126 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

at the working stations, and even in that number 
many who were able to present an appearance of 
health had lost much of their courage". 

Col. Gorgas tells of a party of eighteen young 
Frenchmen who came to the Isthmus, all but one of 
whom died within a month. The Mother Superior 
of the nursing sisters in the French hospital at Ancon 
lost by fever twenty-one out of twenty-four sisters 
who had accompanied her to the Isthmus. 

How great was the total loss of French lives can 
only be guessed. The hospital records show that at 
Ancon, 1041 patients died of yellow fever. Col. 
Gorgas figures that as many died outside the hos- 
pital. All the French records are more or less 
incomplete and their authenticity doubtful because 
apprehension for the tender hopes and fears of the 
shareholders led to the suppression of unpleasant 
facts. The customary guess is that two out of 
every three Frenchmen who went to the Isthmus 
died there. Col. Gorgas, who at one time figured 
the total loss during the French regime at 16,500, 
recently raised his estimate to 22,000, these figured 
of course including negro workmen. Little or no 
effort was made to induce sanitary living, as imder 
the Americans, and so ignorant were the French — 
as indeed all physicians were at that time — of the 
causes of the spread of yellow fever, that they set 
the legs of the hospital beds in shallow pans of 
water to keep the ants from creeping to the beds. 









PliuUis i and ,> bij L iiutiuoua a: L iiut^ruutja 

I. OLD FRENCH CANAL AT MINDL. 2. BAS OBISPO IN FRENCH 
DAYS. 3. JUNCTURE OF FRENCH AND AMERICAN CANALS 



BifBtTtipff 



J llftHlPl! 1 i ?in ! iii^S^Sm ■ 1^ 




, .Jin , «^. _ _-a ■i'~iTri"T1i''P nmsc 




Ptioto S by Underwood & Under iroud 
1. TIVOLI HOTEL AT ANCON. 2. THE CHIEF COMMISSARY AT 
CRISTOBAL. 3. WASHINGTON HOTEL AT CRISTOBAL 



REVOLUTIONS AND THE FRENCH 127 

The ants were stopped, but the water bred hosts of 
wrigglers from which came the deadly stegomyia 
mosquito, which carries the yellow-fever poison from 
the patient to the well person. Had the hospital 
been designed to spread instead of to cure disease 
its managers could not have planned better. 

It is a curious fact that, in a situation in which 
the toll of death is heaviest, man is apt to be most 
reckless and riotous in his pleasures. The old 
drinking song of the English guardsmen beleaguered 
during the Indian mutiny voices the almost imiver- 
sal desire of strong men to flaunt a gay defiance in 
the face of death: 

"Stand! Stand to your glasses steady, 
'Tis all we have left to prize, 
One cup to the dead already, 
Hurrah, for the next that dies" 

Wine, wassail and, I fear, women were much in 
evidence during the hectic period of the French 
activities. The people of the two Isthmian towns 
still speak of it as the temps de luxe. Dismal thrift 
was banished and extravagance was the rule. 
Salaries were prodigious. Some high officials were 
paid from $50,000 to $100,000 a year with houses, 
carriages, traveling expenses and uncounted inci- 
dentals. Expenditures for residences were lavish, 
and the nature of the structures still standing shows 
that graft was the chief factor in the cost. The 



128 PANAMA AND THE CANAL | 

director-general had a $40,000 bath-house, and a 
private railway car costing $42,000 — which is curi- 
ously enough almost exactly $1000 for each mile of 
the railroad it traversed. The hospital buildings at 
Colon cost $1,400,000 and one has but to look at 
them today to wonder how even the $400,000 was 
spent. 

The pleasures of such a society are not refined. 
Gambling and drinking were the less serious vices. 
A French commentator of the time remarks, "Most 
of the commercial business of Panama is transacted 
standing and imbibing cocktails — always the eternal 
cocktail ! Afterwards, if the consumer had the time 
and money to lose, he had only to cross the hall to 
find himself in a little room, crowded with people 
where roulette was going on. Oh this roulette, how 
much it has cost all grades of canal employees! Its 
proprietor must make vast profits. Admission is 
absolutely free; whoever wishes may join in the play. 
A democratic mob pushes and crowds around the 
tables. One is elbowed at the same time by a negro, 
.almost in rags, anxiously thrusting forward his ten 
sous, and by a portly merchant with his pockets 
stuffed with piasters and banknotes". 

Amidst all the riot in the towns the French con- 
tinued their digging out on the hills and in the 
jungle. In 19 12 the Secretary of the United States 
Canal Commission estimated the amount of excava- 
tion done by the French useful to our Canal at 



REVOLUTIONS AND THE FRENCH 129 

29,709,000 cubic yards worth $25,389,000. That 
by no means represented all their work for our shift 
in the line of the Canal made much of their excava- 
tion valueless. Between Gold Hill and Contractor's 
Hill in the Culebra Cut where our struggle with the 
obstinate resistance of nature has been fiercest, the 
French cut down 161 feet, all of it serviceable to us. 
Their surveys and plats are invaluable, and their 
machinery, which toiirists, seeing some pieces aban- 
doned to the jungle, condemn in the lump, has been 
of substantial value to us both for use and for sale. 
But under the conditions as they found them the 
French could never have completed the Canal. 
Only a government could be equal to that task. 
President Roosevelt found to his own satisfaction 
at least that neither private contract nor . civilian 
management was adequate. Most emphatically if 
the desire for profit was to be the sole animating 
force the Canal could never be built at all. When 
the discovery that the Canal enterprise would never 
be a "big bonanza" dawned on the French stock- 
holders distrust was rapidly succeeded by panic. 
Vainly did De Lesseps repeat his favorite formulas 
"the Canal will be built." Vainly did the officers 
of the company pay tribute to the blackmailers 
that sprang up on every side — journalists, politicians, 
discharged employees, every man who knew a weak 
point in the company's armor. Reorganizations, 
new stock issues, changes of plan, appeals for govern- 



130 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

ment aid, bond issues, followed one after another. 
The sea-level canal was abandoned and a lock canal 
substituted. After repeated petition the French 
Chamber of Deputies, salved with some of the spoil, 
authorized an issue of lottery bonds and bankruptcy- 
was temporarily averted. A new company was 
formed but the work languished, just enough in 
fact being done to keep the concession alive. After 
efforts to enlist the cooperation of the United States, 
the company in despair offered to sell out altogether 
to that government, and after that proffer the center 
of interest was transferred from Paris t© Washington. 
The French had spent in all about $260,000,000 
and sacrificed about 2000 French lives before they 
drew the fires from their dredges, left their steam 
shovels in the jungle and tiu-ned the task over to 
the great American RepubHc. 



CHAPTER V 

THE UNITED STATES BEGINS WORK 

THE probable failure of the French became 
apparent some years before the actual col- 
lapse occurred and public opinion in the 
United States was quite ready for the assumption 
of the work and its expense by our government. 
Of course that opinion was not wholly spontaneous — 
public opinion rarely is, notwithstanding the idealists. 
There were many parties in interest who found it 
profitable to enlist various agencies for awakening 
public opinion in this country to the point of buying 
the French property and saving something out of 
the wreck for the French stockholders. But, as a 
matter of fact, little artificial agitation was needful. 
The people of the United States readily agreed 
that a trans-isthmian canal should be built and 
owned by the United States government. There 
was honest difference of opinion as to the most 
practicable route and even today in the face of the 
victory over nature at Panama there are many who 
hold that the Nicaragua route would have been 
better. 

Naturally the start made by the French had some- 
thing to do with turning the decision in favor of the 

131 



132 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

Isthmus, but it was not decisive. The French had 
no rights that they could sell except the right of veto 
conferred by their ownership of the Panama Rail- 
road. Their franchise from Colombia expressly 
prohibited its transfer to any other government, so 
it was unsalable. But the charter of the Panama 
Railroad, which the French had acquired, provided 
that no interoceanic canal should be built in Co- 
lombia without the consent of the railroad corpora- 
tion. This to some extent gave the French the 
whiphand. What they had to sell was the con- 
trolling stock of the railroad company, the land 
they had acquired in Colombia, the machinery on 
the spot and the work they had completed. But 
all of this was of little value without a franchise from 
Colombia and the one the French held could not be 
transferred to a government, and was of little worth 
anyway, as it would expire in 19 lo, unless the Canal 
were completed by that year — a physical impossi- 
bility. 

In 1898 the race of the battleship "Oregon" 
around Cape Horn to join the United States fleet 
off Cuba in the Spanish-American war offered just 
the graphic and specific argument necessary to 
fix the determination of the American people to dig 
that Canal and to own it. That voyage of 10,000 
miles which might have been avoided by a ditch 
fifty miles long revolted the common sense of the 
nation, and the demand for instant action on the 




I. STEAM SHOVEL AT WORK. 2. OVERWHELMED BY A SLIDE 




I. A TRACK SHIFTER. 2. LIDGERWOOD UNLOADER. 3. A DIRT 
SPREADER AT WORK 



UNITED STATES BEGINS WORK 133 

canal question was universal. Accordingly in 1899 
President McKinley appointed what was known as 
the Walker Commission, because headed by Admiral 
John G. Walker, to investigate all Central American 
routes. They had the data collected during almost 
a century at their disposal and very speedily settled 
down to the alternative between the Panama and 
the Nicaragua routes. Over this choice controversy 
raged long and noisily. While it was in progress the 
bullet of an assassin ended the life of President 
McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt succeeded him. 
The Isthmian Canal was precisely the great, 
epoch-marking spectacular enterprise to enlist the 
utmost enthusiasm and energy of this peculiarly 
dynamic President. A man of strong convictions, 
he favored the Panama route — and got it. He 
believed in a lock canal — and enforced his beliefs 
over the report of the engineers whose expert profes- 
sional opinions he invited. Of a militant tempera- 
ment, he thought the Canal should be dug by the 
army — and that is the way it was built. Not 
over tolerant of other people's rights, he thought the 
United States should have a free hand over the Canal 
and adjacent territory — and when Colombia, which 
happened to own that territory, was slowin accepting 
this view he set up out of nothing over night the new 
Republic of Panama, recognized it as a sovereign 
state two days afterward, concluded a treaty with 
it giving the United States all he thought it should 



134 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

have, and years later, in a moment of frankness, 
declared "I took Panama, and left Congress to 
debate it later." 

About the political morality and the personal 
ethics of the Roosevelt solution of the diplomatic 
problem there will ever be varying opinions. Co- 
lombia is still mourning for her ravished province of 
Panama and refuses to be comforted even at a 
price of $10,000,000 which has been tentatively 
offered as salve for the wound. But that the Canal 
in 191 3 is just about ten years nearer completion 
than it would be had not Roosevelt been President 
in 1903 is a proposition generally accepted. History 
— which is not always moral — is apt to applaud 
results regardless of methods, and the Republic 
and Canal of Panama are likely to be Roosevelt's 
most enduring monuments — though the Canal may 
outlast the Republic. 

Prior to this time there had been several sporadic 
negotiations opened with different nations of Central 
America for canal rights. The most important one 
was a treaty signed at Bogota in 1870 by an envoy 
especially authorized by President Grant. But this 
treaty was never ratified by our Senate, and was 
amended out of acceptable form by the Colombian 
Senate. For the purposes of this narrative we may 
well consider the diplomatic history of the Canal to 
begin with the passage of the Spooner act in 1902. 
This act, written by Senator John C. Spooner of 



UNITED STATES BEGINS WORK 135 

Wisconsin, authorized the Panama route if the 
French property could be bought for $40,000,000 
and the necessary right of way secured from Colom- 
bia. Failing this the Commission of seven members 
created by the act was authorized to open negotia- 
tions with Nicaragua. Events made it quite appar- 
ent that the Nicaragua clause was inserted merely 
as a club to be used in the negotiations with Co- 
lombia and the French company. With the latter 
it proved highly effective, for although the American 
attorney for the company, Mr. William Nelson 
Cromwell, fixed a price at first upon the property 
of $101,141,500 an apparently active opening of 
negotiations with Nicaragua caused an immediate 
drop to the prescribed $40,000,000. With that offer 
in hand the Commission unanimously reported to the 
President in favor of the Panama route. 

The Republic of Colombia was less tractable, and 
naturally so as it held a stronger hand. When 
negotiations began the French concession had but 
seven years more of life. If their progress could 
be prolonged for that period, practically all that the 
United States would have paid the French would be 
paid to Colombia. Meanwhile the French property 
was wholly unsalable without a Colombian fran- 
chise. The one weak point in the Colombian 
armor was the possibility that the United States 
might finally turn to Nicaragua, but this contin- 
gency was made unlikely by the report of the Com- 



136 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

mission, and by the general desire of the American 
people, which was undoubtedly for the Panama 
route. 

In 1903 the Colombian Minister at Washington 
negotiated with Senator Hay a treaty which by a 
lucky chance failed of ratification in the Panama 
Senate. It never reached our Senate, but it is 
quite incredible that it could have succeeded there, 
for it had several features that would have led to 
endless disagreement between the two countries — 
might indeed have resulted in the United States 
annexing Colombia altogether. For example, the 
Canal Zone was to be governed by a joint commis- 
sion of the two coimtries — Colombia remaining 
sovereign over the territory-* The United States 
was to guarantee explicitly the sovereignty of 
Colombia against all the world. Colombia was to 
police the Zone. Each of these sections was big 
with possibilities of trouble. That Colombia did not 
speedily ratify this treaty would be inexplicable, 
for it was all to the Colombian good, except for the 
fact that by delaying any action for seven years the 
French property along the line of the Canal, valued 
at $40,000,000, would drop into the Colombian 
treasury. 

Delay, however, while good enough for the Co- 
lombians, did not suit the Panamanians, nor did it 
please Theodore Roosevelt, whom Providence, while 
richly endowing him otherwise, had not invested 



UNITED STATES BEGINS WORK 137 

with patience in the face of opposition. The Pana- 
manians, by whom for the purposes of this narrative 
I mean chiefly the residents of Colon and the city 
of Panama, wanted to see some American money 
spent in their various marts of trade. The French 
were rapidly disappearing. The business of all 
their commercial institutions from dry goods stores 
down to saloons was falling off. Even the lottery 
did not thrive as of yore and the proprietors of the 
lesser games of chance, that in those days were run 
quite openly, were reduced to the precarious busi- 
ness of robbing each other. All these and other 
vested interests called for immediate negotiation 
of any sort of a treaty which would open the spigots 
of Uncle Sam's kegs of cash over the two thirsty 
Isthmian towns. It was irksome too to think that 
the parent state of Colombia would make the treaty 
and handle the cash accruing under it. The Yankees 
were ready to pay $10,000,000 down, and it was 
believed a further rental of $250,000 for the right 
to build a Canal, every foot of which would be on 
the territory of the Province of Panama. If Panama 
was a sovereign state instead of merely a province, 
all this money would be used for the benefit of but 
400,000 people, including Indians and negroes, 
who of course could not be expected to have much 
to say about its use. If employed in public works, 
it would only have to spread over about 32,000 
square miles, or a territory a little smaller than 



138 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

Indiana. But of course it would chiefly go to the 
two cities. On the other hand if Colombia made 
this treaty the capital city Bogota would get the 
lion's share of the spoil, and for that matter all the 
provinces would share in the division with Panama 
which had the goods for sale. 

What more natural than that the Panamanians 
should turn their thoughts toward secession from 
Colombia. It was no novel channel for their medi- 
tations, for, as has been pointed out already, there 
had been 53 revolutions in Colombia in 57 years. 
Red revolution had become a commonplace except 
for the poor fellows who got themselves killed in 
them, or the widows and children thrown on the 
charity of a rather uncharitable people. Always 
hitherto the result of the revolutions had been the 
same — Panama had either been whipped into sub- 
jection, or had voluntarily returned to the domina- 
tion of Colombia. But that was before there was a 
$10,000,000 prize at stake. 

((in several of these revolutions the United States 
had interfered, always in behalf of Colombia and 
always with fatal effect upon the hopes of the 
revolutionists. For the key to the military situa- 
tion in Panama was the railroad. In every well- 
ordered revolution — for the business of revolting 
had become a science — the conspirators began by 
corrupting the federal soldiers at Panama city where 
alone any garrison was maintained. This done they 



UNITED STATES BEGINS WORK 139 

proclaimed Panama a free and independent state. 
As there was no land communication between 
Bogota and the Isthmus the federal government was 
compelled to send its troops to Colon and thence 
across the Isthmus to Panama by railroad. If the 
revolutionists could destroy or obstruct the railroad, 
their chances for success would be greatly enhanced. 

But under a treaty with Colombia in 1846 the 
United States guaranteed the neutrality of the rail- 
road and this guarantee was sensibly constructed to 
include the task of keeping the line open for traffic. 
In several revolutions therefore United States 
marines were detailed to guard the line, and Co- 
lombia being thus enabled to pour its superior forces 
into Panama crushed out rebellion with comparative 
ease. If the experience of the 53 revolutions counted 
for anything, it indicated that Panama could not 
throw off the Colombian yoke as long as the United 
States kept the railroad open for Colombian troops.V\ 

Let us consider the situation toward the mid- 
summer of 1903. In Washington was the Roose- 
velt administration keenly eager to have the Canal 
work begun as a great deed to display to the nation 
in the coming presidential campaign. In New York 
was Mr. William Nelson Cromwell, representing the 
French company and quite as keen for action which 
would enable him to sell the United States $40,- 
000,000 worth of French machinery and uncompleted 
canal. At Bogota was the Colombian legislature 



140 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

talking the Hay-Herrara treaty to death and giving 
every indication of a piirpose of kilHng it. Spanning 
the Isthmus was the all-important railroad which was 
part of the property the French so greatly desired 
to sell. And at Panama and Colon were groups of 
influential men, high financiers in a small way — a 
leader among them was the owner of the Panama 
lottery — exceedingly anxious to have the handling 
of that $10,000,000 which the United States would 
pay for a franchise, and quite desirous to have the 
country tributary to those two towns suddenly popu- 
lated by 40,000 to 50,000 Canal workmen, all drawing 
money from the United States and spending it there. 

What happened was inevitable. Under the con- 
ditions existing only two things could have pre- 
vented the successful revolution which did occur — 
the quick ratification of a satisfactory treaty between 
the United States and Colombia, or an observance 
by the United States of the spirit as well as the letter 
of neutrality in the inevitable revolution. 

Neither of these things happened. The Congress 
at Bogota failed to ratify the treaty. In Panama 
and Colon the revolutionary Juata conspired, and 
sent emissaries to Washington to sound the govern- 
ment there on its attitude in case of a revolution. 
To their aid came Mr. Cromwell and M. Bunau- 
Varilla, a highly distinguished French engineer also 
interested in the plight of his coimtrymen. Dr. 
Amador was chosen to sound the then Secretary of 



UNITED STATES BEGINS WORK 141 

State John Hay. He was told, according to 
trustworthy reports, that while the United States 
guaranteed Colombia against foreign aggression, 
it did not bind itself to protect the sovereignty of 
that state against domestic revolution. In the 
event of such an uprising all it was bound to do 
was to see that traffic over the railroad was unim- 
peded. This sounded and still sounds fair enough, 
but there were minds among the revolutionists to I 

isee that this policy opened the way for a successful 

^revolution at last. 

For this is the way in which the policy worked 
when put to the test — and indeed some of the 
incidents indicate that the Roosevelt administra- 
tion went somewhat beyond the letter of the rule 
Secretary Hay had laid down. Our government 
knew before the revolutionary blow was struck 
that it was imminent. It is said indeed that when 
the revolutionists suggested September 22nd as the 
date for the spontaneous uprising of the people 
the Secretary sagaciously suggested that the Con- 
gress of Colombia would not then have adjourned and 
that it might seem irregular to base a revolution 
on the omission of the legislature to act when 
it was still in session and could correct that omission. 
For this or some other reason the revolution was 
postponed until November 5th. The Colombian 
minister at Washington kept his government advised 
of the suspicious activity there of the agents of the 



142 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

Junta and warmly advised the heavy reenforcement 
of the garrison at Panama. But his home govern- 
ment was slow to follow his advice. When it did 
move it was checked by the French managers of 
the railroad. 

Colombia's only considerable seaport on the 
Pacific is Buenaventura and at this point troops 
were collected to reenforce Panama. Two Colom- 
bian gunboats in harbor at Panama were ordered 
to go after the troops. Coal was needed for the 
voyage. The only source of coal supplies on the 
Isthmus was the Panama Railroad which had long 
made a practice of selling the fuel to all comers. But 
to the request of the Colombian navy for coal at this 
time the railroad agent, evidently primed for the 
occasion, put in a reluctant negative. All his coal 
was at Colon, and the pressure of commercial busi- 
ness was so great that he could not move it across 
the Isthmus in season to be of use to the gunboats. 
So those troops stayed at Buenaventura and the 
Junta at Panama went on with its plotting. 

Now Colombia tried another plan to reenforce its 
Panama garrison — or to replace it, for by this time 
the troops that had been there were won over to the 
smoldering conspiracy. About four hundred soldiers 
were sent down by the Gulf and landed at Colon. 
That they were landed at all seems like a slight 
error in carrying out the Roosevelt policy, for in the 
harbor of Colon lay the United States cruiser "Nash- 



UNITED STATES BEGINS WORK 143 

ville" whose commander had this despatch from the 
Secretary of the Navy: 

"Maintain free and uninterrupted transit. If 
interruption is threatened by armed force occupy 
Hne of railroad. Prevent landing of any armed 
force with hostile intent either government or in- 
surgent, either at Colon, Porto Bello or other points.''^ 

Now there are some curious features about this 
despatch. On November 2nd, its date, there was 
no insurrection, therefore no insurgents. If the 
administration intended to take official cognizance of 
the activities of the Junta it must have known that 
the conspirators had no ships and could not there- 
fore plan landing any forces. The order then was^^ 
'plainly designed to prevent Colombia from landing! 
\ troops in its own territory — a most extraordinary? 
Ipolicy to adopt toward a friendly nation. It was 
furthermore an order equivalent to assuring the 
success of the foreshadowed revolution, for as there 
was no way except by sea for Colombia to send 
troops to put down the insurgents, it was evident 
that for the United States by its superior force to 
close the sea against her was to give Panama over 
to the revolutionists. 

However 400 troops were landed on the 3rd of 
November. The commander of the "Nashville" 
probably thought his orders only operative in case 
of an outbreak of insurrection and thus far there had 
been none. It became time for the railroad com- 



144 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

pany to declare its second check — which in this case 
was checkmate. When the two generals in com- 
mand of the Colombian forces ordered special trains 
to transport their men to Panama the agent blandly 
asked for prepayment of the fares — something above 
$2000. The generals were embarrassed. They had 
no funds. It was of course the business of the road, 
under its charter from Colombia, to transport the 
troops on demand, and it was the part of the gen- 
erals to use their troops to compel it to do so. But 
the captain of the "Nashville" prohibited the use 
of troops for that purpose. Taking the matter 
under advisement they went alone across to Pan- 
ama to investigate the situation. There they 
were met by Gen. Huertas, in command of the 
garrison, who first gave them a good dinner and 
then put them under arrest informing them that 
Panama had revolted, was now an independent re- 
public, and that he was part of the new regime. 
There was no more to it in Panama. The two gen- 
erals submitted gracefully. The Junta arrested all 
the Colombian officials in Panama, who thereupon 
readily took oath of fealty to the new government. 
A street mob, mainly boys, paraded cheering for 
Panama Libre. The Panama flag sprang into be- 
ing, and the revolution was complete. 

Out in the harbor lay three Colombian gunboats. 
Two swiftly displayed Panama flags, which by singu- 
lar good fortime were in their lockers. The third 



UNITED STATES BEGINS WORK 145 

with a fine show of loyalty fired two shells over the 
insurgent city, one of which, bursting, slew an inno- 
cent Chinaman smoking opium in his bunk. The 
city responded with an ineffective shot or two from 
the seawall and the sole defender of the sovereignty 
of Colombia pulled down its flag. 

At the other end of the line the situation was more 
serious and might well have caused bloodshed. Col. 
Torres, in charge of the troops there, on hearing 
the news from Panama demanded a train at once, 
threatening that unless it was furnished he would 
attack the Americans in the town. He had more 
than 400 armed men, while on the "Nashville" were 
but 192 marines. In such a contest the Colombians 
could have relied upon much assistance from the 
natives. With a guard of 42 marines employees of 
the railroad prepared its stone freight house for de- 
fense while American women and children were sent 
to vessels in the harbor. The Colombian colonel 
had fixed two o'clock as the hour for beginning hos- 
tilities, but when that time arrived he invited a con- 
ference, and it was finally agreed that both parties 
should retire from Colon, while he went to Panama 
to consiilt with the jailed generals. During his 
absence the "Dixie" arrived with 400 marines, 
and a little later the "Atlanta" with 1000. With 
this overwhelming force against him Col. Torres 
recognized that the United States was back of 
the railroad's refusal of transportation and so 



146 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

yielded. With his troops he sailed again for 
Cartagena. 

Two days after the revolution — bloodless save 
for the sleeping Chinaman — the United States recog- 
nized the Republic of Panama. Twelve days later, 
with M. Bunau-Varilla, who had by cable been ap- 
pointed minister to Washington, a treaty was con- 
cluded by which the United States was granted all 
it desired for the furtherance of the Canal project. 
Much of the subsequent time of President Roosevelt 
was taken up in arguing that he had not gone beyond 
the proper boimds of diplomacy in getting this advan- 
tage, but the world though accepting the result has 
ever been incredulous of his protestations of good 
faith. And the end is not yet. Colombia has not 
condoned the part taken by the United States, and 
the State Department has long been endeavoring 
to discover some way, not too mortifying to our 
national self-esteem, by which we may allay Colom- 
bia's discontent. And as for that nation it has per- 
sistently refused to recognize Panama as independ- 
ent, one of the results of which has been that the 
perpetrators of crime on the Isthmus may skip 
blithely over the line to Bogota or Cartagena and 
enjoy life free from dread of extradition. 

Briefly summarized the terms of the treaty thus 
expeditiously secured are : 

I. The guaranty of the independence of the Re- 
public of Panama, 



UNITED STATES BEGINS WORK 147 

2. The grant to the United States of a strip of 
land from ocean to ocean, extending for five miles 
on each side of the Canal, to be called the Canal 
Zone and over which the United States has abso- 
lute jurisdiction. From this Zone the cities of 
Panama and Colon are explicitly excluded. 

3. All railway and canal rights in the Zone are 
ceded to the United States and its property therein 
is exempted from taxation. 

4. The United States has the right to police, gar- 
rison and fortify the Zone. 

5. The United States is granted sanitary juris- 
diction over the cities of Panama and Colon, and 
is vested with the right to preserve order in the Re- 
public, should the Panamanian government in the 
judgment of the United States fail to do so. 

6. As a condition of the treaty the United States 
paid to Panama $10,000,000 in cash, and in 191 3 
began the annual payment of $250,000 in perpetuity. 

Thus equipped with all necessary international 
authority for the work of building the Canal Presi- 
dent Roosevelt plunged with equal vehemence and 
audacity into the actual constructive work. If he 
strained to the breaking point the rights of a friendly 
nation to get his treaty, he afterwards tested even 
further the elasticity of the power of a President to 
act without Congressional authority. 

We may hastily pass over the steps forward. Mr. 
Cromwell was paid the $40,000,000 for the French 



148 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

stockholders, and at once there arose a prodigious 
outcry that the Frenchmen got but Httle out of it; 
that their stock had been bought for a few cents on 
the dollar by speculative Americans; that these 
Americans had financed the "revolution" and that 
some of the stock was held by persons very close to 
the administration. None of these charges was 
proved, but all left a rather bad impression on the 
public mind. However the United States received 
full value for the money. April 28, 1904, Congress 
appropriated the $10,000,000 due Panama, and with 
the title thus clear Lieutenant Mark Brooke, 
U. S. A., at 7:30 A. M. May 4th, formally took over 
the territory in the name of the United States. 
An excellent opportunity for pomp and ceremony, 
for fuss and feathers, was thus wasted. There were 
neither speeches nor thundering salutes and the 
hour was obviously unpropitious for champagne. 
"They order these things better in France," as 
"Uncle Toby" was wont to say. 

When little more than a decade shall have rolled 
away after that wasted ceremonial moment the 
visitor to the Isthmus will gaze upon the greatest 
completed public work of this or any other past age. 
To conceive of some task that man may accom- 
plish in future that will exceed in magnitude this 
one is in itself a tax upon the most vivid imagina- 
tion. To what great work of the past can we com- 
pare this one of the present? 



UNITED STATES BEGINS WORK 149 

The great Chinese wall has been celebrated in all 
history as one of man's most gigantic efforts. It is 
1500 miles long and would reach from San Francisco 
to St. Louis. But the rock and dirt taken from the 
Panama Canal would build a wall as high and thick 
as the Chinese wonder, 2500 miles long and reach 
from San Francisco to New York in a bee-line. 

We cross thousands of miles of ocean to see the 
great Pyramid of Cheops, one of the Seven Wonders 
of the ancient world. But the "spoil" taken from 
the Canal prism would build sixty-three such pyra- 
mids which put in a row would fill Broadway from 
the Battery to Harlem, or a distance of nine miles. 

The Panama Canal is but fifty miles long, but if 
we could imagine the United States as perfectly 
level, the amount of excavation done at Panama 
would dig a canal ten feet deep and fifty-five feet 
wide across the United States at its broadest part. 

New York City boasts of its great Pennsylvania 
terminal, and its sky-piercing Wool worth Building; 
Washington is proud of its towering Washington 
Monument, the White House and the buildings ad- 
jacent thereto. But the concrete used in the locks 
and dams of the Canal woiild make a pyramid 400 feet 
high, covering the great railway station; the ma- 
terial taken from Culebra cut alone would make a 
pyramid topping the Woolworth tower by 100 feet, 
and covering the city from Chambers to Fulton 
Streets, and from the City Hall to West Broadway ; 



150 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

while the total soil excavated in the Canal Zone 
would form a pyramid 4200 feet or four-fifths of a 
mile high, and of equal base line obliterating not only 
the Washington Monument but the White House, 
Treasury, the State, War and Navy Buildings and 
the finest part of official Washington as well, 
y Jules Verne once, in imagination, drove a tunnel 
through the center of the earth, but the little cylin- 
drical tubes drilled for the dynamite cartridges on 
"the line" (as people at Panama refer to the Canal 
Zone) would, if placed end to end, pierce this great 
globe of ours from side to side; while the dirt cars 
that have carried off the material would, if made 
up in one train, reach four times around the world. 

But enough of the merely big. Let us consider the 
spectacle which would confront that visitor whom, 
in an earlier chapter, we took from Colon to view 
Porto Bello and San Lorenzo. After finishing those 
historical pilgrimages if he desired to see the Canal 
in its completed state — say after 19 14 — he would 
take a ship at the great concrete docks at Cristobal 
which will have supplanted as the resting places 
for the world's shipping the earlier timber wharves 
at Colon. Steaming out into the magnificent Limon 
Bay, the vessel passes into the channel dredged out 
some three miles into the turbulent Caribbean, and 
protected from the harsh northers by the massive 
Toro Point breakwater. The vessel's prow is turned 
toward the land, not westward, as one would think 




Photos 1 and 3 (c) Underwood & Underwood, 
I. LIGHT HOUSE POINT. 2. LIGHT AT PACIFIC ENTRANCE TO CANAL. 
3. GATUN LOCK LIGHT 




I' nolo J (c) Uriihriniml ,<c I'lidirinnid 

I. SHOWING IT TO THE BOSS. 2. ROOSEVELT's GUIDING HAND 



UNITED STATES BEGINS WORK 151 

of a ship bound from the Atlantic to the Pacific, 
but almost due south. The channel through which , 
she steams is 500 feet wide at the bottom and 41 feet 
deep at low tide. It extends seven miles to the first 
interruption at Gatun, a tide-water stream all the 
way. The shores are low, covered with tropical 
foliage, and littered along the water line with the 
d6bris of recent construction work. After steam- 
ing about six miles some one familiar with the line 
will be able to point out over the port side of the 
ship the juncture of the old French canal, with the 
completed one, and if the jungle has not grown up 
too thick the narrow channel of the former can be 
traced reaching back to Colon by the side of the 
Panama Railroad. This canal was used by the 
Americans throughout the construction work. 

At this point the shores rise higher and one on the 
bridge, or at the bow, will be able to clearly discern 
far ahead a long hill sloping gently upward on each 
side of the Canal, and cut at the center with great 
masses of white masonry, which as the ship comes 
nearer are seen to be gigantic locks, rising in pairs 
by three steps to a total height of 85 feet. For 1000 
feet straight out into the center of the Canal extends 
a massive concrete pier, the continuation of the 
center wall, or partition, between the pairs of locks, 
while to right and left side walls flare out, to the 
full width of the Canal like a gigantic U, or a funnel, 
guiding the ships toward the straight pathway up- 



152 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

ward and onward. A graceful lighthouse gmdes the 
ships at night, while all along the central pier and 
guide wall electric lights in pairs give this outpost 
of civilization in the jungle something of the air 
at night of a brightly lighted boulevard. 

Up to this time the ship had been proceeding under 
her own steam and at about full speed. Now slow- 
ing down she gradually comes to a full stop alongside 
the central guide wall. Here will be waiting four 
electric locomotives, two on the central, two on the 
side wall. Made fast, bow and stern, the satellites 
start off with the ship in tow. It will take an hour 
and a half to pass the three locks at Gatun and ar- 
rangements will probably be made for passengers to 
leave the ship and walk by its side if desired, as it 
climbs the three steps to the waters of Gatun Lake 
85 feet above. 

Probably the first thing the observant passenger 
will notice is that as the ship steams into the open 
lock the great gates which are to close behind her 
and hold the water which flows in from below, 
slowly lifting her to the lock above, are folded flush 
with the wall, a recess having been built to receive 
them. The chamber which the vessel has entered 
is 1000 feet long, if the full water capacity be em- 
ployed, no feet wide and will raise the ship 283^ 
feet. If the ship is a comparatively^ small one, the 
full length of the lock will not be used, as interme- 
diate gates are provided which will permit the use of 



UNITED STATES BEGINS WORK 153 

400 or 600 feet of the lock as required — thus saving 
water, which means saving power, for the water that 
raises and lowers the ships also generates electric 
power which will be employed in several ways. 

Back of each pair of gates is a second pair of 
emergency gates folded back flush with the wall and 
only to be used in case of injury to the first pair. 
On the floor of the Canal at the entrance to the lock 
lies a great chain, attached to machinery which, at 
the first sign of a ship's becoming unmanageable, 
will raise it and bar the passage. Nearly all serious 
accidents which have occurred to locks have been 
due to vessels of which control has been lost, by 
some error in telegraphing from the bridge to the 
engine room. For this reason at Panama vessels 
once in the locks will be controlled wholly by the 
four locomotives on the lock walls which can check 
their momentum at the slightest sign of danger. 
Their own engines will be shut down. Finally at 
the upper entrance to the locks is an emergency dam 
built on the guide wall. It is evident that if an acci- 
dent should happen to the gates of the upper lock 
the water on the upper level would rush with destruc- 
tive force against the lower ones, perhaps sweeping 
away one after the other and wrecking the Canal 
disastrously. To avert this the emergency dams 
are swung on a pivot, something like a drawbridge, 
athwart the lock and great plates let down one after 
the other, stayed by the perpendicular steel frame- 



154 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

work until the rush of the waters is checked. A 
caisson is then sunk against these plates, making 
the dam complete. 

The method of construction and operation of these 
locks will be more fully described in a later chapter. 
What has been outlined here can be fully observed 
by the voyager in transit. The machinery by which 
all is operated is concealed in the masonry crypts 
below, but the traveler may find cheer and certainty 
of safety in the assurance of the engineer who took 
me through the cavernous passages — "It's all made 
fool proof". 

Leaving the Gatun locks and going toward the 
Pacific the ship enters Gatun Lake, a great arti- 
ficial body of water 85 feet above tide water. This 
is the ultimate height to which the vessel must 
climb, and it has reached it in the three steps of the 
Gatun locks. To descend from Gatun Lake to the 
Pacific level she drops down one lock at Pedro 
Miguel, 2>o}4 feet; and two locks at Miraflores with 
a total descent of 54^ feet. Returning from the 
Pacific to the Atlantic the locks of course are taken 
in reverse order, the ascent beginning at Miraflores 
and the complete descent being made at Gatun. 
Gatun Lake constitutes really the major part of the 
Canal, and the channel through it extends in a some- 
what tortuous course, for about 24 miles. So broad 
is the channel dredged — ranging from 500 to 1000 
feet in width and 45 to 85 in depth — that vessels 



UNITED STATES BEGINS WORK 155 

will proceed at full speed, a very material advantage, 
as in ordinary canals half speed or even less is pre- 
scribed in order to avoid the erosion of the banks. 

The lake which the voyager by Panama will tra- 
verse will in time become a scenic feature of the 
trip that cannot fail to delight those who gaze upon 
it. But for some years to come it will be ghastly, 
a living realization of some of the pictures emanating 
from the abnormal brain of Gustave Dore. On 
either side of the ship gaunt gray trunks of dead 
trees rise from the placid water, draped in some in- 
stances with the Spanish moss familiar to residents 
of oiir southern states, though not abundant on the 
Isthmus. More of the trees are hung with the 
trailing ropes of vines once bright with green foliage 
and brilliant flowers, now gray and dead like the 
parent trunk. Only the orchids and the air plants 
will continue to give some slight hint of life to the 
dull gray monotony of death. For a time, too, it 
must be expected that the atmosphere will be as 
offensive as the scene is depressing, for it has been 
found that the tropical foliage in rotting gives out 
a most penetrating and disagreeable odor. The 
scientists have determined to their own satisfaction 
that it is not prejudicial to health, but the men who 
have been working in the camps near the shores 
of the rising lake declare it emphatically destructive 
of comfort. 

The unfortunate trees are drowned. Plunging 



156 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

their roots beneath the waters causes their death as 
infaUibly, but not so quickly, as to fill a man's lungs 
with the same fluid brings on his end. The Canal 
Commission has not been oblivious to the disadvan- 
tages, both aesthetic and practical, of this great body 
of dead timber standing in the lake, but it has found 
the cost of removing it prohibitive. Careful esti- 
mates fix the total expense for doing quickly what 
nature will do gratis in time at $2,000,000. The 
many small inlets and backwaters of the lake more- 
over will afford breeding places for the mosquitos and 
other pestilent insects which the larvacide man with 
his can and pump can never reach, and no earthly 
ingenuity can wholly purify. 

One vegetable phenomenon of the lake, now ex- 
ceedingly common, will persist for some time after 
the ocean-going steamers begin to ply those waters, 
namely the floating islands. These range from a few 
feet to several acres in extent, and are formed by 
portions of the spongy bed of the lake being broken 
away by the action of the water, and carried off 
by the current, or the winds acting upon the aquatic 
plants on the surface. They gradually assume a 
size and consistency that will make them, if not com- 
bated, a serious menace to navigation. At present 
the sole method of dealing with them is to tow them 
down to the dam and send them over the spillway, 
but some more speedy and efficacious method is yet 
to be devised. However as the trees now standing 



UNITED STATES BEGINS WORK 157 

fall and disintegrate, and the actual shores of the 
lake recede further from the Canal the islands will 
become fewer, and the space in which they can 
gather without impediment to navigation greater. 
Another menace to a clear channel which has put in 
an appearance is the water hyacinth which has prac- 
tically destroyed the navigability of streams in 
Florida and Louisiana. Conditions in Gatun Lake 
are ideal for it and the officials are studying methods 
of checking its spread from the very beginning. 

The waters of the lake cover 164 square miles and 
are at points eighty-five feet deep. In the main this 
vast expanse of water, one of the largest of artificial 
reservoirs, containing about 183 billion cubic feet 
of water, is supplied by the Chagres River, though 
several smaller streams add to its volume. Be- 
fore the dam was built two or three score yards 
measured the Chagres at its widest point. Now the 
waters are backed up into the interior far beyond 
the borders of the Canal Zone, along the course of 
every little waterway that flowed into the Chagres, 
and busy launches may ply above the sites of buried 
Indian towns. The towns themselves will not be 
submerged, for the cane and palm-thatched huts will 
float away on the rising tide. Indeed from the ships 
little sign of native life will appear, unless it be 
Indians in cayucas making their way to market. 
For the announced policy of the government is to 
depopiilate the Zone. All the Indian rights to the 



158 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

soil have been purchased and the inhabitants re- 
morselessly ordered to move out beyond the five- 
mile strip on either side of the Canal. This is un- 
fortunate, as it will rob the trip of what might have 
been a scenic feature, for the Indians love to build 
their villages near the water, which is in fact their 
principal highway, and but for this prohibition 
would probably rebuild as near the sites of their 
obliterated towns as the waters would permit. 

In passing through the lake the Canal describes 
eight angles, and the attentive traveler will find 
interest in watching the rangelights by which the 
ship is guided when navigating the channel by day 
or by night — for there need be no cessation of passage 
because of darkness. These rangelights are light- 
houses of reenforced concrete so placed in pairs that 
one towers above the other at a distance back of the 
lower one of several hundred feet. The pilot keep- 
ing these two in line will know he is keeping to the 
center of his channel until the appearance of two 
others on either port or starboard bow warns him 
that the time has come to turn. The towers are of 
graceful design, and to come upon one springing 
sixty feet or more into the air from a dense jungle 
clustering about its very base is to have a new ex- 
perience in the picturesque. They will need no 
resident light keepers, for most are on a general 
electric light circuit. Some of the more inaccessible 
however are stocked with compressed acetylene 



UNITED STATES BEGINS WORK 159 

which will bum over six months without recharging. 
The whole canal indeed from its beginning miles out 
in the Atlantic to its end under the blue Pacific will 
be lighted with buoys, beacons, lighthouses and light 
posts along the locks until its course is almost as 
easily followed as a "great white way". 

Sportsmen believe that this great artificial lake will 
in time become a notable breeding place for fish and 
game. Many of our migratory northern birds, in- 
cluding several varieties of ducks, now hibernate at 
the Isthmus, and this broad expanse of placid water, 
with its innumerable inlets penetrating a land 
densely covered with vegetation, should become for 
them a favorite shelter. The population will be 
sparse, and mainly as much as five miles away from 
the line of the Canal through which the great steam- 
ers will ceaselessly pass. 

During the period of its construction that portion 
of the Canal which will lie below the surface of 
Gatun Lake was plentifully sprinkled with native 
villages, and held two or three considerable con- 
struction towns. Of the latter Gorgona was the 
largest, which toward the end of Canal construction 
attained a population of about 4000. In the earlier 
history of the Isthmus Gorgona was a noted stopping 
place for those crossing the neck, but it seems to 
have been famed chiefly for the badness of its ac- 
commodations. Otis says of it, "The town of Gor- 
gona was noted in the earlier dg-ys of the river travel 



i6o PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

as the place where the wet and jaded traveler was 
accustomed to worry out the night on a rawhide, 
exposed to the insects and the rain, and in the 
morning, if he was fortunate, regale himself on 
jerked beef and plantains. " 

The French established railroad shops here which 
the Americans greatly enlarged. As a result this 
town and the neighboring village of Matachin be- 
came considerable centers of industry and Gorgona 
was one of the pleasantest places of residence on 
"the line". Its Y. M. C. A. clubhouse was one 
of the largest and best equipped on the whole Zone, 
and the town was well supplied with churches and 
schools. By the end of 191 3 all this will be changed. 
The shops will have been moved to the great new 
port of Balboa; such of the houses and official build- 
ings as could economically be torn down and reerected 
will have been thus disposed of. Much of the two 
towns will be covered by the lake, but on the higher 
portions of the site will stand^for some years deserted 
ruins which the all-conquering jungle will finally take 
for its own. The railroad which once served its active 
people will have been moved away to the other side 
of the Canal and Gorgona will have returned to the 
primitive wilderness whence Pizarro and the gold 
hunters awakened it. Near its site is the hill miscalled 
Balboa's and from the steamships' decks the wooden 
cross that stands on its summit may be clearly seen. 

Soon after passing Gorgona and Matachin the 



UNITED STATES BEGINS WORK i6i 

high; bridge by which the railroad crosses the Chagres 
at Gamboa, with its seven stone piers, will be visible 
over the starboard side. This point is of some 
interest as being the spot at which the water was 
kept out of the long trench at Culebra. A dyke, 
partly artificial, here obstructed the Canal cut and 
carried the railroad across to Las Cascadas, Em- 
pire, Culebra and other considerable towns all aban- 
doned, together with that branch of the road, upon 
the completion of the Canal. 

Now the ship passes into the most spectacular 
part of the voyage — the Culebra Cut. During the 
process of construction this stretch of the work vied 
with the great dam at Gatun for the distinction of 
being the most interesting and picturesque part 
of the work. Something of the spectacular effect 
then presented will be lost when the ships begin to 
pass. The sense of the magnitude of the work will 
not so greatly impress the traveler standing on the 
deck of a ship, floatinp- on the siirface of the Canal 
which is here 45 feet deep, as it would were he stand- 
ing at the bottom of the cut. He will lose about 
75 feet of the actual height, as commanded by the 
earlier traveler who looked up at the towering 
height of Contractors' Hill from the very floor of 
the colossal excavation. He will lose, too, much 
of the almost barbaric coloring of the newly opened 
cut where bright red vied with chrome yellow in 
startling the eye, and almost every shade of the 



i62 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

chromatic scale had its representative in the freshly- 
uncovered strata of earth. 

The tropical foliage grows swiftly, and long before 
the new waterway will have become an accustomed 
path to the ships of all nations the sloping banks will 
be thickly covered with vegetation. It is indeed 
the purpose of the Commission to encourage the 
growth of such vegetation by planting, in the belief 
that the roots will tie the soil together and lessen 
the danger of slides and washouts. The hills that 
here tower aloft on either side of the Canal form 
part of the great continental divide that, all the 
way from Alaska to the Straits of Magellan, divides 
the Pacific from the Atlantic watershed. This is its 
lowest point. Gold Hill, its greatest eminence, rises 
495 feet above the bottom of the Canal, which in 
turn is 40 feet above sea level. The story of the 
gigantic task of cutting through this ridge, of the 
new problems which arose in almost every week's 
work, and of the ways in which they were met and 
overcome will necessitate a chapter to itself. Those 
who float swiftly along in well-appointed steamships 
through the almost straight channel 300 feet wide 
at the bottom, between towering hills, will find the 
sensation the more memorable if they will study 
somewhat the figures showing the^proportions of the 
work, the full fruition of which they are enjoying. 

At Pedro Miguel a single lock lets the ship down 
to another little lake hardly two miles across to 



UNITED STATES BEGINS WORK 163 

Miraflores where two more locks drop it down to 
tide water. From Miraflores the traveler can see 
the great bulk of Ancon Hill looming up seven miles 
away, denoting the proximity of the city of Panama 
which lies huddled under its Pacific front. Practi- 
cally one great rock is Ancon Hill, and its landward 
face is badly scarred by the enormous quarry which 
the Commission has worked to fiu-nish stone for 
construction work. At its base is the new port of 
Balboa which is destined to be in time a great dis- 
tributing poiat for the Pacific coast of both North 
and South America. For the vessels coming through 
the Canal from the Atlantic must, from Balboa, turn 
north, south or proceed direct across the Pacific to 
those Asiatic markets of which the old-time mari- 
ners so fondly dreamed. Fleets of smaller coast- 
wise vessels will gather here to take cargoes for the 
ports of Central America, or for Ecuador, Colombia, 
Peru and other Pacific states of South America. 
The Canal Commission is building great docks for 
the accommodation of both through and local ship- 
ping; storage docks and pockets for coal and tanks 
for oil. The coaling plant will have a capacity of 
about 100,000 tons, of which about one-half will be 
submerged. One dry dock will take a ship 1000 
feet long and 105 feet wide — the width of the dock 
itself being no feet. There will be also a smaller 
dock. One pier, of the most modern design, 
equipped with unloading cranes and 2200 feet long 



i64 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

is already complete, and the plans for additional 
piers are prepared. The estimated cost of the ter- 
minals at Balboa is $15,000,000. 

The Suez Canal created no town such as Balboa 
is likely to be, for conditions with it were wholly 
different. Port Said at the Mediterranean end and 
Aden at the Red Sea terminus are coaling stations, 
nothing more. Geographical considerations how- 
ever are likely to give to both Balboa and Cristobal 
— particularly the former — prime importance as 
points of transshipment. 

The machine shops long in Gorgona and Matachin 
have been removed to Balboa, and though since the 
completion of the Canal the number of their employees 
has been greatly decreased, the work of repairing 
and outfitting vessels may be expected to maintain 
a large population of mechanics. The administra- 
tion offices now at Culebra will also be moved to 
Balboa, which in fact is likely to become the chief 
town of the Canal Zone. Here is to be an em- 
ployees' club house, built of concrete blocks at a cost 
of $52,000. Like the other club houses established 
during the construction period it will be under the 
direct administration of the Y. M. C. A. The town 
of Balboa, and the club house will be in no small de- 
gree the fruit of the earnest endeavor of Col. Goethals 
to build there a town that shall be a credit to the 
nation, and a place of comfort for those who in- 
habit it. His estimate presented to Congress of the 



UNITED STATES BEGINS WORK 165 

cost and character of the houses to be furnished to 
officers of various grades and certain public buildings 
may be interesting here. The material is all to be 
concrete blocks: 

Governor's house $25,000 

Commissioners' and high officials' houses, 

each 15,000 

Houses of this type to have large center 
room, a sitting room, dining room, bath, 
kitchen and four bed rooms. 

Families drawing $200 a month 6,000 

Families drawing less, in 4-family buildings . . 4,000 

Bachelor quarters, for 50 50,000 

Besides these buildings for personal occupance Balboa 
will contain — ^imless the original plans are materially 
modified: 

Hotel $22,500 

Commissary 63,000 

School 32,000 

Police station and court 37,000 

When Col. Goethals was presenting his estimates 
to Congress in 19 13 the members of the Committee 
on Appropriations looked somewhat askance on the 
club-house feature of his requests, and this colloquy 
occurred : 

"The Chairman: *A $52,000 club house?' 
"Col. Goethals: 'Yes, sir. We need a good club house, 
because we should give them some amusement, and 
keep them out of Panama. I believe in the club-house 
principle.' 



166 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

"The Chairman: 'That is all right, but you must con- 
template a very elaborate house? ' 

"Col. Goethals: 'Yes, sir. I want to make a town 
there that will be a credit to the United States 
government.'" 

Looking out to sea from the prow of a ship enter- 
ing the Pacific Ocean you will notice three conical 
islands rising abruptly from the waves, to a height 
of three or four hundred feet. To be more precise 
the one nearest the shore ceased to be an island 
when the busy dirt trains of the Canal Commission 
dumped into the sea some millions of cubic yards of 
material taken from the Culebra Cut, forming at 
once a great area of artificial land which may in en- 
suing centuries have its value, and a breakwater 
which intercepts a local current that for a time gave 
the Canal builders much trouble by filling the channel 
with silt. The three islands, Naos, Flamenco, and 
Perico, are utilized by the United States as sites for 
powerful forts. The policy of the War Depart- 
ment necessarily prevents any description here of 
the forts planned or their armament. Every govern- 
ment jealously guards from the merely curious a 
view of its defensive works, and the intruder with a 
camera, however harmless and inoffensive he may be, 
is severely dealt with as though he had profaned the 
Holy of Holies. Despite these drastic precautions 
against the harmless tourist, it is a recognized fact 
that every government has in its files plans and de- 



UNITED STATES BiEGINS WORK 167 

scriptions of the forts of any power with which it is 
at all likely to become involved in war. 

It may be said however, without entering into pro- 
hibited details, that by the fortifications on the islands, 
and on the hills adjacent to the Canal entrance, 
as well as by a permanent system of submarine 
mines the Pacific entrance to the Canal is made as 
nearly impregnable as the art of war permits. The 
locks at Miraflores are seven miles inland and the 
effective range of naval guns is fourteen miles, so 
that but for the fortifications and a fleet of our own 
to hold the hostile fleet well out to sea the very key- 
stone of the Canal structure would be menaced. 
Our government in building its new terminal city at 
Balboa had before it a very striking illustration of 
the way in which nations covet just such towns. 
Russia on completing her trans-Siberian railroad 
built at Port Arthur a terminal even grander and 
more costly than our new outpost on the Pacific. 
But the Japanese flag now waves over Port Arthur 
and incidentally the fortifications of that famous 
terminal were also considered impregnable. Perhaps 
the impregnable fort like the unsinkable ship is 
yet to be found. 

At Balboa the trip through the completed Canal 
will be ended. It has covered a fraction over fifty 
miles, and has consumed, according to the speed of 
the ship and the * * smartness ' ' of her handling in locks, 
from seven to ten hours. He who was fortunate 



1 68 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

enough to make that voyage may well reflect on the 
weeks of time and the thousands of tons of coal neces- 
sary to carry his vessel from Colon to Balboa had 
the Canal not existed. 

From Balboa to the ancient and yet gay city of 
Panama rims a trolley line by which the passenger, 
whose ship remains in port for a few days, or even 
a few hours, may with but little cost of time or money 
visit one of the quaintest towns on the North Ameri- 
can continent. If the climate, or the seemingly in- 
eradicable sluggishness of the Panamanian do not 
intervene the two towns should grow into one, 
though their governments must remain distinct, as 
the Republic of Panama natiu-ally clings to its capi- 
tal city. But seemingly the prospect of a great new 
port at his doors, open to the commerce of all the 
world, where ships from Hamburg and Hong Kong, 
from London and Lima, from New York and New 
Zealand may all meet in passing their world-wide 
ways, excites the Panamanian not a whit. He exists 
content with his town as it is, reaching out but little 
for the new trade which this busy mart next door 
to him should bring. No new hotels are rising within 
the line of the old walls ; no new air of haste or enter- 
prise enlivens the placid streets and plazas. Per- 
haps in time Balboa may be the big town, and Pan- 
ama as much outworn as that other Panama which 
Morgan left a mere group of ruins. It were a pity 
should it be so, for no new town, built of neat cement 




Photos 1 and 2 by Underwood & Underwood 

I. SUBMARINE DRILLS AT WORK. 2. TRAVELLING CRANES IN A 
LOCK. 3. CONCRETE CARRIERS AT PEDRO MIGUEL 




I. FLUVIOGRAPH AT BOHIO. 2. GAMBOA BRIDGE IN DRY SEASON. 
3. GAMBOA BRIDGE IN RAINY SEASON 



UNITED STATES BEGINS WORK 169 

blocks, with a Y. M. C. A. club house as its crown- 
ing point of gaiety, can ever have the charm which 
even the casual visitor finds in ragged, bright- 
colored, crowded, gay and perhaps naughty Panama. 



CHAPTER VI 

MAKING "THE DIRT FLY" 

AMERICAN control of the Canal, as I have 
already pointed out, was taken over without 
any particular ceremony immediately after 
the payment to Panama of the $10,000,000 provided 
for in the treaty. Indeed so sHght was the friction 
incident to the transfer of ownership from the 
French to the Americans that several hundred 
laborers employed on the Culebra Cut w^ent on with 
their work serenely unconscious of any change in 
management. But though work was uninterrupted 
the organization of the directing force took time 
and thought. It took more than that. It de- 
manded the testing out of men in high place and 
the rejection of the unfit ; patient experimenting with 
methods and the abandonment of those that failed 
to produce results. There was a long period of 
this experimental work which sorely tried the 
patience of the American people before the canal- 
digging organization fell into its stride and moved 
on with a certain and resistless progress toward 
the goal. 

In accordance with the Spooner act President 
Roosevelt on March 8, 1904, appointed the first 

170 



MAKING "THE DIRT FLY" 171 

Isthmian Canal Commission with the following per- 
sonnel : 

Admiral John G. Walker, U. S. N., Chairman, 

Major General George W. Davis, U. S. A., 

William Barclay Parsons, 

William H. Burr, 

Benjamin M. Harrod, 

Carl Ewald Gunsky, 

Frank J. Hecker. 

In 191 3 when the canal approached completion 
not one of these gentlemen was associated with it. 
Death had carried away Admiral Walker, but official 
mortality had ended the canal-digging careers of the 
others. The first commission visited the Isth- 
mus, stayed precisely 24 days, ordered some 
new siu^eys and returned to the United States. 
The most important fact about its visit was that it 
was accompanied to the scene of work by an army 
surgeon, one Dr. W. C. Gorgas, who had been 
engaged in cleaning up Havana. Major Gorgas, 
to give him his army title, was not at this time a 
member of the Commission but had been appointed 
Chief Sanitary Officer. I shall have much to say 
of his work in a later chapter; as for that matter 
Fame will have much to say of him in later ages. 
Col. Goethals, who will share that pinnacle, was not 
at this time associated with the canal work. Coinci- 
dently with the Commission's visit the President 
appointed as chief engineer, John F. Wallace, at 



172 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

the moment general manager of the IlHnois Central 
Railroad. His salary was fixed at $25,000 a year. 
In telling the story of the digging of the Panama 
Canal we shall find throughout that the engineer 
outshines the Commission; the executive rather 
than the legislative is the ruling force. The story 
therefore groups itself into three chapters of very 
unequal length — namely the administrations as 
chief engineers of John F. Wallace, from June i, 

1904, to June 28, 1905; John F. Stevens, Jime 30, 

1905, to April I, 1907, and Col. George W. Goethals 
from April i, 1907, to the time of publication of this 
book and doubtless for a very considerable period 
thereafter. 

Each of these officials encountered new problems, 
serious obstacles, heartbreaking delays and disap- 
pointments. Two broke down under the strain; 
doubtless the one who took up the work last profited 
by both the errors and the successes of his predeces- 
sors. It is but human nature to give the highest 
applause to him who is in at the death, to immor- 
talize the soldier who plants the flag on the citadel, 
forgetting him who fell making a breach in the 
outer breastworks and thereby made possible the 
ultimate triumph. 

Wallace at the very outset had to overcome one 
grim and unrelenting enemy which was largely 
subdued before his successors took up the work. 
Yellow fever and malaria ravaged the Isthmus, as 



MAKING "THE DIRT FLY" 173 

they had done from time immemorial, and although 
Sanitary Officer Gorgas was there with knowledge 
of how to put that foe to rout the campaign was 
yet to be begun. They say that Wallace had a 
lurking dread that before he could finish the canal 
the canal would finish him, and indeed he had 
sound reasons for that fear. He found the head- 
quarters of the chief engineer in the building on 
Avenida Centrale now occupied by the United States 
legation, but prior to his time tenanted by the French 
Director- General. The streets of the town were 
unpaved, ankle deep in foul mire in the rainy season, 
and covered with germ-laden dust when dry. There 
being no sewers the townsfolk with airy indifference 
to public health emptied their slops from the second- 
story windows feeling they had made sufficient con- 
cession to the general welfare if they warned passers- 
by before tilting the bucket. Yellow fever was 
always present in isolated cases, and by the time 
Wallace had been on the job a few months it be- 
came epidemic, and among the victims was the 
wife of his secretary. 

However, the new chief engineer tackled the job 
with energy. There was quite enough to enlist his 
best energies. It must be remembered that at this 
date the fundamental problem of a sea level vs. a 
lock canal had not been determined — was not defi- 
nitely settled indeed until 1906. Accordingly En- 
gineer Wallace's first work was getting ready to 



174 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

work. He found 746 men tickling the surface of 
Culebra Cut with hand tools ; the old French houses, 
all there were for the new force, had been seized 
upon by natives or overrun by the jiingle; while 
the French had left great quantities of serviceable 
machinery it had been abandoned in the open and 
required careful overhauling before being fit for use; 
the railroad was inadequate in track mileage and 
in equipment. Above all the labor problem was 
yet to be successfully solved. In his one year's 
service Wallace repaired 357 French houses and 
built 48 new ones, but the task of housing the 
employees was still far from completed. Men 
swarmed over the old French machinery, cutting 
away the jungle, dousing the metal with kerosene and 
cleaning off the rust. Floating dredges were set to 
work in the channel at the Atlantic end — which 
incidentally has been abandoned in the completed 
plans for the Canal though it was used in preliminary 
construction. The railroad was reequipped and 
extended and the foundation laid for the thoroughly 
up-to-date road it now is. Meanwhile the surveying 
parties were busy in the field collecting the data 
from which after a prolonged period of discussion, 
the vexed question of the type of canal should be 
determined, 

Two factors in the situation made Wallace's job 
the hardest. The Commission made its head- 
quarters in Washington, 2000 miles or a week's 



MAKING "THE DIRT FLY" 175 

journey away from the job, and the American people, 
eager for action, were making the air resound with 
cries of "make the dirt fly!" In a sense Wallace's 
position was not unlike that of Gen. McClellan in the 
opening months of the Civil War when the slogan of 
the northern press \/as "On to Richmond," and no 
thought was given to the obstacles in the path, or 
the wisdom of prepiiring fully for the campaign be- 
fore it was begun. There are many who hold today 
that if Wallace had been deaf to those who wanted 
to see the dirt fly, had taken the men off the work of 
excavation until the type of canal had been deter- 
mined and all necessary housing and sanitation work 
had been completed, the results attained would 
have been better, and the strain which broke down 
this really capable engineer would have been averted. 

Red tape immeasurable wound about the Chief 
Engineer and all his assistants. Requisitions had 
to go to the Commission for approval and the 
Commission clung to Washington tenaciously, as all 
federal commissions do wherever the work they are 
commissioned to perform may be situated. Diuring 
the Civil War days a story was current of a Major 
being examined for promotion to a colonelcy. 

"Now, Major," asked an examiner, "we will con- 
sider, if you please, the case of a regiment just ordered 
into battle. What is the usual position of the 
colonel in such a case?" 

"On Pennsylvania Avenue, about Willard's 



176 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

Hotel", responded the Major bravely and truth- 
fully. 

The officers who directed Wallace's fighting force 
clung to Pennsylvania Avenue and its asphalt rather 
than abide with Avenida Centrale and its mud. 
So too did succeeding commissions until Theodore 
Roosevelt, who had a personal penchant for being 
on the firing line, ordered that all members of the 
Commission should reside on the Isthmus. At that 
he had trouble enforcing the order, except with the 
Army and Navy officers who made up five-sevenths 
of the Commission. 

How great was the delay caused by red tape and 
absentee authorities cannot be estimated. When 
requisitions for supplies reached Washington, the 
regulations required that bids be advertised for. 
I rather discredit the current story that when a 
young Panamanian arrived at Ancon Hospital and 
the mother proved unable to furnish him with food, 
the doctor in charge was officially notified that if he 
bought a nursing bottle without advertising thirty 
days for bids he must do so at his own expense. 
That story seems too strikingly illustrative of red- 
tape to be true. But it is true that after Col. 
Gorgas had worked out his plans for fiu-nishing 
running water to Panama, and doing away with 
the cisterns and great jars in which the residents 
stored water and bred mosquitoes, it took nine 
months to get the iron pipes, ordinary ones at that, 



MAKING "THE DIRT FLY" 177 

to Panama. Meanwhile street paving and sewerage 
were held up and when Wallace wired the Commis- 
sion to hurry he was told to be less extravagant 
in his use of the cable. 

No man suffered more from this sort of official 
delay and stupidity than did Col. Gorgas. If any 
man was fighting for life it was he — not for his own 
life but that of the thousands who were working or 
yet to work on the Canal. Yet when he called for 
wire netting to screen out the malarial mosquitoes, he 
was rebuked by the Commission as if he were asking 
it merely to contribute to the luxury of the employees. 
The amount of ingenuity expended by the Com- 
mission in suggesting ways in which wire netting 
might be saved would be admirable as indicative 
of a desire to guard the public purse, except for the 
fact that in saving netting they were wasting hu- 
man lives. The same policy was pursued when ap- 
peals came in for additional equipment for the hospi- 
tals, for new machinery, for wider authority. When- 
ever anything was to be done on the Canal line the 
first word from Washington was always criticism — ■ 
the policy instantly applied was delay. 

Allowing for the disadvantages under which he 
labored Mr. Wallace achieved great results in his 
year of service on the Isthmus. But his connection 
with the Canal was ended in a way about which 
must ever hang some element of mystery. He com- 
plained bitterly, persistently and justly about the 



178 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

conditions in which he was compelled to work and 
foirnd in President Roosevelt a sympathetic and a 
reasonable auditor. Indeed, moved by the Chief 
Engineer's appeals, the President endeavored to se- 
ciire from Congress authority to substitute a Com- 
mission of three for the imwieldy body of seven with 
which Wallace found it so hard to make headway. 
Failing in this, the President characteristically 
enough did by indirection what Congress would not 
permit him to do directly. He demanded and re- 
ceived the resignations of all the original commis- 
sioners, and appointed a new board with the fol- 
lowing members: 

Theodore P. Shonts, CJtairman, 

Charles E. Magoon, Governor of the Canal Zone, 

John F. Wallace, Chief Engineer, 

Mordecai T. Endicott, 

Peter C. Hains, 

Oswald H. Ernst, 

Benjamin M. Harrod. 

As in the case of the earlier commissioners none 
of these remained to see the work to a conclusion. 

This commission, though similar in form, was 
vastly different in fact from its predecessor. The 
President in appointing it had directed that its 
first three members should constitute an executive 
committee, and that two of these, Gov. Magoon and 
Engineer Wallace, should reside continuously on the 
Zone. To further concentrate power in Mr. Wal- 



MAKING "THE DIRT FLY" 179 

lace's hands he was made Vice-President of the 
Panama Raikoad. The President thus secured prac- 
tically all he had asked of Congress, for the exec- 
utive committee of three was as powerful as the 
smaller commission which Congress had refused 
him. In all this organization Mr. Wallace had been 
consulted at every step. He stayed for two months 
in Washington while the changes were in progress 
and expressed his entire approval of them. It was 
therefore with the utmost amazement that the Presi- 
dent received from him, shortly after his return to 
the Isthmus, a cable requesting a new conference and 
hinting at his resignation. 

At the moment that cable message was sent 
Panama was shuddering in the grasp of the last yel- 
low-fever epidemic that has devastated that terri- 
tory. Perhaps had Col. Gorgas secured his wire 
netting earlier, or Wallace's appeals for water pipes 
met with prompter attention, it might have been 
averted. But in that May and June of 1905 the 
fever ravaged the town and the work camps almost 
as it had in the days of the French. There had been, 
as already noted, some scattered cases of yellow 
fever in the Zone when the Americans took hold, but 
they were too few and too widely separated to cause 
any general panic. The sanitary authorities, how- 
ever, noted with apprehension that they did not de- 
crease, and that a very considerable proportion were 
fatal. It was about this time that the Conimission 



i8o PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

was snubbing Col. Gorgas because of his insatiable 
demands for wire screening. In April there were 
seven cases among the employees in the Commis- 
sion's headquarters in Panama. Three died and 
among the 300 other men employed there panic 
spread rapidly. Nobody cared about jobs any 
longer. From all parts of the Zone white-faced men 
flocked to the steamship offices to secure passage 
home. Stories about the ravages of the disease 
among the French became current, and the men at 
work shuddered as they passed the little French 
cemeteries so plentifully scattered along the Zone. 

The sanitary forces wheeled out into the open and 
went into the fight. Every house in Panama and 
Colon was fumigated, against the bitter protests of 
many of the householders who would rather face 
yellow fever than the cleansing process, and who did 
not believe much in these scientific ideas of the 
"gringoes" anyway. An army of inspectors made 
house-to-house canvasses of the towns and removed, 
sometimes by force, all suspected victims to the iso- 
lation hospitals. The malignant mosquitoes, coiu"- 
iers of the infection, were pursued patiently by regi- 
ments of men who slew all that were detected and 
deluged the breeding places with larvacide. The 
war of science upon sickness soon began to tell. 
June showed the high-water mark of pestilence with 
sixty-two cases and six deaths. From that point 
it declined until in December the last case was 



MAKING "THE DIRT FLY" i8i 

registered. Since then there has been no case of 
yellow fever originating on the Isthmus, and the 
few that have been brought there have been so 
segregated that no infection has resulted. 

It was, however, when the epidemic was at its 
height that Mr. Wallace returned from Washington 
to the Isthmus. Almost immediately he cabled, 
asking to be recalled and the President, with a pre- 
monition of impending trouble, so directed. On 
reaching New York he met the then Secretary of 
War, afterward President, William Howard Taft, 
to whom he expressed dissatisfaction with the situ- 
ation and asked to be relieved at the earliest possible 
moment. Secretary Taft declined to consider his 
further association with the Canal for a moment, de- 
manded that his resignation take effect at once and 
reproached him for abandoning the work in words 
that stung, and which when reiterated in a letter 
and published the next day put the retiring engineer 
in a most imenviable position. From this position 
he never extricated himself. Perhaps the fear of 
the fever, of which he thought he himself had a slight 
attack, shook his nerve. Perhaps, as the unchari- 
table thought and the Secretary flatly charged, a 
better position had offered itself just as he had be- 
come morally bound to finish the Canal work. Or 
perhaps he concluded in the time he had for cool re- 
flection on the voyage to Panama that the remedies 
offered for the red tape, divided authority and delay 



i82 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

that had so handicapped him were inadequate. His 
communication to the press at the time was imcon- 
vincing. The fairest course to pursue in the matter 
is to accept Mr. Wallace's own statement made to a 
congressional investigating committee nearly a year 
later, in answer to a question as to the cause of his 
resignation : 

"My reason was, that I was made jointly respon- 
sible with Mr. Shonts and Mr. Magoon for work on 
the Canal, while Mr. Shonts had a verbal agreement 
with the President that he should have a free rein 
in the management of all matters. I felt Mr. 
Shonts was not as well qualified as I was either as a 
business man or an administrator, and he was not an 
engineer. ... I thought it better to sacrifice my 
ambitions regarding this work, which was to be the 
crowning event of my life, than remain to be humil- 
iated, forced to disobey orders, or create friction". 

The Wallace resignation was at the moment most 
imfortimate. There had for months been an almost 
concerted effort on the part of a large and influential 
section of the press, and of men having the pubHc 
ear to decry the methods adopted at Panama, to 
criticize the men engaged in the work and to mag- 
nify the obstacles to be overcome. Perhaps this 
chorus of detraction was stimulated in part by ad- 
vocates of the Nicaragua route hoping to reopen 
that controversy. Probably the transcontinental 
railroads, wanting no canal at all, had a great deal 



MAKING "THE DIRT FLY" 183 

to do with it. At any rate it was loud and insistent, 
and the men on the Isthmus were seriously affected 
by it. They knew by Mr. Wallace's long absence 
that some trouble was brewing in Washington. 
His sudden departure again after his return from the 
capital and the rumor that he had determined to 
take a more profitable place added to the unrest. 
Probably the rather savage letter of dismissal with 
which Secretary Taft met the Chief Engineer's letter 
of resignation, and the instantaneous appointment 
in his place of John F. Stevens, long associated with 
James J. Hill in railroad building, at a salary $5000 
a year greater, was the best tonic for the tired feeling 
of those on the Isthmus. It indicated that the 
President thought those who had accepted positions 
of command on the Canal Zone had enlisted for the 
war, and that they could not desert in the face of 
the enemy without a proper rebuke. It showed 
furthermore that the loss of one man woiild not be 
permitted to demoralize the service, but that the cry 
familiar on the line of battle: "Close up! Close up, 
men! Forward!" was to be the rallying cry in the 
attack on the hills of Panama. 

Despite the unfortunate circumstances attending 
Mr. Wallace's retirement, his work had been good, 
so far as it went. In office a little more than a year, 
he had spent more than three months of the time in 
Washington or at sea. But he had made more than 
a beginning in systematizing the work, in repairing 



i84 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

the railroad, in renovating the old machinery and 
actually making "the dirt fly". Of that objection- 
able substance — on the line of the Canal, if anywhere, 
they applaud the definition "dirt is matter out of 
place" — he had excavated 744,644 yards. Not 
much of a showing judged by the records of 1913, 
but excellent for the machinery available in 1905. 
The first steam shovel was installed during his 
regime and before he left nine were working. The 
surveys, under his direction, were of great advan- 
tage to his successor, who never failed to acknow- 
ledge their merit. 

Mr. Stevens, who reached the Canal, adopted at 
the outset the wise determination to reduce con- 
struction work to the minimum and concentrate 
effort on completing arrangements for housing and 
feeding the army of workers which might be ex- 
pected as soon as the interminable question of the 
sea level or lock canal could be finally determined. 
From his administration dates much of the good 
work done in the organization of the Commissary 
and Subsistence Department, and the development 
of the railroad. The inducement of free quarters 
added to high wages to attract workers also origi- 
nated with him. At the same time Gov. Magoon 
was working over the details of civil administration, 
the schools, courts, police system and road building. 
The really fundamental work of Canal building, the 
preparation of the ground for the edifice yet to be 



MAKING "THE DIRT FLY" 185 

erected, made great forward strides at this period. 
But the actual record of excavation was but small. 

One reason for this was the hesitation over the 
type of canal to be adopted. It is obvious that 
several hundred thousand cubic yards of dirt dug 
out of a ditch have to be dumped somewhere. If 
deposited at one place the dump would be in the 
way of a sea-level canal while advantageous for the 
lock type. At another spot this condition would 
be reversed. Already the Americans had been 
compelled to move a second time a lot of spoil 
which the French had excavated, and which, under 
the American plans, was in danger of falling back 
into Culebra Cut. "As a gift of prophecy is with- 
held from us in these latter days", wrote Stevens 
plaintively in reference to the vacillation concerning 
the plans, "all we can do now is to make such 
arrangements as may look proper as far ahead as 
we can see". 

President Roosevelt meanwhile was doing all he 
could to hasten determination of the problem. 
Just before the appointment of Mr. Stevens he ap- 
pointed an International Board of Advisory Engi- 
neers, five being foreign and nine American, to exam- 
ine into the subject and make recommendations. 
They had before them a multiplicity of estimates 
upon which to base their recommendations and it 
may be noted eight years after the event that not 
one of the estimates came within one hundred mil- 



1 86 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

lion dollars of the actual cost. From which it ap- 
pears that when a nation undertakes a great public 
work it encounters the same financial disillusion- 
ments that come to the young homebuilder when 
he sets out to build him a house from architect's plans 
guaranteed to keep the cost within a fixed amount. 
Poor De Lesseps estimated the cost of a sea-level 
canal at $131,000,000, though it is fair to say for the 
French engineers whose work is so generally ap- 
plauded by our own that their estimate was several 
million dollars higher. The famous International 
Congress had estimated the cost of a sea-level canal 
at $240,000,000. In fact the French spent $260,- 
000,000 and excavated about 80,000,000 cubic yards 
of earth! Then came on our estimators. The 
Spooner act airily authorized $135,000,000 for a 
canal of any type, and is still in force, though we 
have already spent twice that amount. The Walker 
Commission fixed the cost of a sea-level canal with 
a dam at Alhajuela and a tide lock at Miraflores at 
$240,000,000. The majority of President Roose- 
velt's Board of Advisory Engineers reported in favor 
of a sea-level canal and estimated its cost at $250,- 
000,000; the minority declared for a lock canal, 
fixing its cost "in round numbers" at $140,000,000. 
Engineer Wallace put the cost of a sea-level canal at 
$300,000,000, exclusive of the $50,000,000 paid for 
the Canal Zone. Col. Goethals came in in 1908, 
with the advantage of some years of actual con- 



MAKING "THE DIRT FLY" 187 

stniction, and fixed the cost of the sea-level canal at 
$563,000,000 and the lock type at $375,000,000. 
He guesses best who guesses last, but it may be sug- 
gested in the vernacular of the streets that even 
Col. Goethals "had another guess coming". 

On all these estimates the most illuminating com- 
ment is furnished by the Official Handbook of the 
Panama Canal for 19 13 showing total expenditures 
to November i, 1912, of $270,625,624, exclusive of 
fortification expenditures. The Congressional ap- 
propriations to the same date, all of which were 
probably utilized by midsummer of 19 13, were 
$322,551,448.76. 

The action of his Advisory Board put President 
Roosevelt for the moment in an embarrassing posi- 
tion. A swinging majority declared for a sea-level 
canal, and even when the influence of Engineer 
Stevens, who was not a member of the Board, was 
exerted for the lock type it left the advocates of that 
form of canal still in the minority. To ask a body 
of eminent scientists to advise one and then have 
them advise against one's own convictions creates 
a perplexing situation. But Roosevelt was not one 
to allow considerations of this sort to weigh much 
with him when he had determined a matter in his 
own mind. Accordingly he threw his influence for 
the lock type, sent a resounding message to Congress 
and had the satisfaction of seeing his views approved 
by that body June 29, 1906. It had been two years 



i88 I^ANAMA AND THE CANAL 

and two months since the Americans came to 
Panama, and though at last the form of canal was 
determined upon there are not lacking today men 
of high scientific and political standing who hold 
that .an error was made, and that tdtimately the 
great locks will be abandoned and the Canal bed 
brought down to tide water. 

The Americans on the Isthmus now got fairly into 
their stride. Determination of the type of canal at 
once determined the need for the Gatun Dam, spill- 
way and locks. It necessitated the shifting of the 
roadbed of the Panama railroad, as the original bed 
would be covered by the new lake. The develop- 
ment of the commissary system which supplied 
everything needful for the daily life of the em- 
ployee, the establishment of quarters, the creation 
of a public-school system were all well under way. 
Then arose a new issue which split the second Com- 
mission and again threatened to turn things topsy- 
turvy. 

Chairman Shonts, himself a builder of long ex- 
perience and well accustomed to dealing with con- 
tractors, was firmly of the opinion that the Canal 
could best be built by letting contracts to private 
bidders for the work. In this he was opposed by 
most of his associates, and particularly by Mr. 
Stevens, who had been working hard and efficiently 
to build up an organization that would be capable 
of building the Canal without the interposition of 



MAKING "THE DIRT FLY" 189 

private contractors looking for personal profit. The 
employees on the Zone, naturally enough, were with 
Stevens to a man, and time has shown that he and 
they were right. There is something about working 
for the nation that stirs a man's loyalty as mere 
private employment never can. But in this in- 
stance Mr. Shonts was in Washington, convenient to 
the ear of the President, while Mr. Stevens w^as on 
the Zone. Accordingly the President approved of 
the Chairman's plan, and directed the Secretary 
of War, Mr. Taft, to advertise for bids. Mr. 
Stevens was discontented and showed it. That his 
judgment would be justified in the end he could not 
know. That it had been set aside for the moment 
he was keenly aware, and that he was being harassed 
by Congress and by innumerable rules such as no 
veteran railroad builder had ever been subjected to 
did not add to his comfort. 

His complaints to the Secretary of War were 
many, and not of a sort to contribute to that of- 
ficial's peace of mind. When the bids came in from 
the would-be contractors they were all rejected on 
the groimd that they did not conform to the speci- 
fications, but the real reason was that the President 
at heart did not believe in that method of doing the 
work, and was siu^e that the country agreed with 
him. This should have allayed Mr. Stevens' rising 
discontent. It certainly offended Chairman Shonts, 
who stood for the contract system, and when the 



190 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

bids were rejected and that system set aside promptly 
resigned. The President thereupon consoHdated the 
offices of Chairman of the Commission and Chief 
Engineer in one, Mr. Stevens being appointed 
that one. Given thus practically unlimited power 
Mr. Stevens might have been expected to be pro- 
foundly contented with the situation. Instead he 
too resigned on the first of April, 1907. 

About his resignation as about that of Mr. Wal- 
lace there has always been a certain amount of mys- 
tery. He himself made no explanation of his act, 
though his friends conjectured that he was not 
wholly in harmony with the President's plan to 
abolish the civilian commission altogether, and fill 
its posts by appointments from the Army and Navy. 
On the Isthmus there is a story that he did not in- 
tend to resign at all. Albert Edwards, who heard 
the story early, tells it thus: 

"One of the Canal employees, who was on very 
friendly terms with Stevens, came into his office and 
found him in the best of spirits. When the business 
in hand was completed he said jovially: 

"'Read this. I've just been easing my mind 
to T. R. It's a hot one — isn't it?' And he handed 
over the carbon copy of his letter. His visitor read 
it with great seriousness. 

'"Mr. Stevens', he said, 'that is the same as a 
resignation'. 

"And Stevens laughed. 




I. A QUIET DAY IN THE CUT. 2. THE SLIDE AT CULEBRA 




I. WORKING ON FOUR LEVELS. 2. ATTACKING A SLIDE. 
3. A BIT OF THE CUCARACHA SLIDE 



MAKING "THE DIRT FLY" 191 

"'Why, I've said that kind of thing to the Colonel 
a dozen times. He knows I don't mean to quit this 
job'. 

"But about three hours after the letter reached 
Washington Mr. Stevens received a cablegram: 
'Your resignation accepted'". 

At any rate the Stevens' resignation called forth 
no such explosive retort as had been directed against 
the unhappy Wallace, and he showed no later signs 
of irritation, but came to the defense of his successor 
in a letter strongly approving the construction of 
certain locks and dams which were for the moment 
the targets of general public criticism. 

Two weeks before Stevens resigned the other 
members of the Commission, excepting Col. Gorgas, 
in response to a hint from the President had sent 
in their resignations. Mr. Roosevelt had deter- 
mined that henceforward the work should be done 
by army and navy officers, trained to go where the 
work was to be done and to stay there until recalled ; 
men who had entered the service of the nation for 
life and were not looking about constantly to "better 
their conditions". He had determined fiuther that 
the government should be the sole contractor, the 
only employer, the exclusive paymaster, landlord 
and purveyor of all that was needful on the Zone. 
In short he had planned for the Canal Zone a form of 
administration which came to be called socialistic 
and gave cold chills to those who stand in dread of 



192 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

that doctrine. To carry out these purpOvSes he ap- 
pointed on April i, 1907, the following commission: 

Lieut.-Col. George W. Goethals, Chairman and 
Chief Engineer, 

Major D. D. Gaillard, U. S. A.. 

Major William L. Sibert, U. S. A., 

Mr. H. H. Rousseau, U. S. N., 

Col. W. C. Gorgas, U. S. A., Medical Corps, 

Mr. J. C. S. Blackburn, 

Mr. Jackson Smith, 

Mr. Joseph Bucklin Bishop, Secretary. 

A majority of this commission was in office at the 
time of publication of this book, and gave evidences 
of sticking to the job until its completion. Senator 
Blackburn resigned in 19 10 and was succeeded by 
Hon. Maurice H. Thatcher, also of Kentucky; and 
Mr. Smith retired in favor of Lieut.-Col. Hodges in 
1908.* With the creation of this commission began 
the forceful and conclusive administration of Col. 
Goethals, the man who finished the Canal. 

* In June, 19 13, President Wilson announced the pending ap- 
pointment of Richard L. Metcalf of Nebraska to succeed Com- 
missioner Thatcher, but at the time of the publication of this book 
the appointment had not been consummated. 



CHAPTER VII 

COL. GOETHALS AT THE THROTTLE 

THE visitor to the Canal Zone about 19 13 could 
hardly spend a day in that bustling community 
without becoming aware of some mighty poten- 
tate not at all mysterious, but omnipresent and seem- 
ingly omniscient, to whom all matters at issue were 
referred, to whom nothing was secret, whose word 
was law and without whose countenance the mere 
presence of a visitor on the Zone was impossible. 
The phrases most in use were "see the Colonel", 
"ask the Colonel" and "the Colonel says". If 
there had been a well-conducted newspaper on the 
Zone these phrases would have been cast in slugs in 
its composing room for repeated and ready use. 
No President of the United States, not even Lincoln 
in war times, exerted the authority he daily employed 
in the zenith of his power. The aggrieved wife 
appealed to his offices for the correction of her 
marital woes, and the corporation with a $600,000 
steam crane to sell talked over its characteristics 
with the Colonel. He could turn from a vexed 
question of adjusting the work of the steam shovels 
to a new slide in the Culebra Cut, to compose the 
differences of rival dancing clubs over dates at the 

193 



194 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

Tivoli Hotel ball-room. On all controverted ques- 
tions there was but one court of last resort. As an 
Isthmian poetaster put it: 

"See Colonel Goethals, tell Colonel Goethals, 
It's the only right and proper thing to do. 

Just write a letter, or, even better, 
Arrange a little Sunday interview". 

Engineer Stevens in a speech made at the moment 
of his retirement before a local club of workers said : 

"You don't need me any longer. All you have 
to do now is to dig a ditch. What you want is a 
statesman". 

A statesman was found and his finding exemplifies 
strikingly the fact that when a great need arises 
the man to meet it is always at hand, though 
frequently in obscurity. Major George W. Goethals 
of the General Staff stationed at Washington was 
far from being in the public eye. Anyone who 
knows his Washington well knows that the General 
Staff is a sort of general punching bag for officers 
of the Army who cannot get appointments to it, 
and for newspaper correspondents who are fond of 
describing its members as fusty bureaucrats given 
to lolling in the Army and Navy Club while the 
Army sinks to the level of a mere ill-ordered militia. 
But even in this position Major Goethals had not 
attained sufficient eminence to have been made a, 
target for the slings and arrows of journalistic 
criticism. As a member of the Board of Fortifica- 



COL. GOETHALS AT THE THROTTLE 195 

tions, however, he had attracted the attention of 
Secretary Taft, and through him had been brought 
into personal relations with President Roosevelt. 

Of course when a man has "made good" every- 
body is quick to discern in him the qualities which 
compel success. But Roosevelt must have been able 
to discover them in the still untested Goethals, for 
when the Stevens' resignation reached Washington 
the President at once turned to him with the remark, 
"I've tried two civilians in the Canal and they've 
both quit. We can't build the Canal with a new 
chief engineer every year. Now I'm going to give 
it to the Army and to somebody who can't quit". 

John F. Stevens resigned April i, 1907, and on 
the same day Col. Goethals became Chief Engineer 
of the Panama Canal, and the supreme arbiter of 
the destinies of all men and things on the Canal 
Zone. Everybody with a literary turn of mind who 
goes down there describes him as the Benevolent 
Despot, and that crabbed old philosopher Thomas 
Carlyle would be vastly interested could he but see 
how the benevolent despotism which he described 
as ideal but impossible is working successfully down 
in the semi-civilized tropics. 

Before describing in detail Col. Goethals' great 
work, the digging of the Canal, let me relate some 
incidents which show what manner of man it was 
that took the reins when the Americans on the 
ditch swung into their winning stride. 



196 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

This is the way they tell one story on the Isthmus : 

A somewhat fussy and painfully perturbed man 
bustled into the office of Col. Goethals one morning 
and plunged into his tale of woe. 

"Now I got that letter of yours, Colonel", he 
began but stopped there, checked by a cold gaze 
from those quiet blue eyes. 

"I beg your pardon", said the Colonel suavely, 
"but you must be mistaken. I have written you 
no letter". 

"Oh, yes. Colonel, it was about that work down 
at Miraflores". 

"Oh, I see. You spoke a little inaccurately. You 
meant you received my orders, not a letter. You 
have the orders, so that matter is settled. Was 
there anything else you wished to talk with me 
about"? 

But the visitor's topic of conversation had been 
summarily exhausted and, somewhat abashed, he 
faded away. 

And again : A high official of the Isthmian Com- 
mission had been somewhat abruptly translated from 
the Washington office to Ancon. There was no 
house suitable for his occupancy and the Colonel 
ordered one built to be ready, let us say, October 
first. Meanwhile the prospective tenant and his 
family abode at the Tivoli Hotel which, even to 
one enjoying the reduced rates granted to employees, 
is no inexpensive spot. Along about the middle of 




I. ADMINISTRATION BUILDING, ANCON. 2. COL. GOETHALS HOUSE, 
CULEBRA. 3. THE OFFICIAL QUARTER, ANCON 




THE TWO COLONELS, COL. GORGAS AND 0L. GOETHALS 



COL. GOETHALS AT THE THROTTLE 197 

August he began to get apprehensive. A few 
foundation pillars were all that was to be seen of 
the twelve-room house, of the type allotted to 
members of the Commission, which was to be his. 
He spoke of his fears to the Colonel at lunch one 
day. 

"Let's walk over to the site and see", remarked 
that gentleman calmly. It may be noted in passing 
that walking over and seeing is one of the Colonel's 
favorite stunts. There are mighty few, if any, 
points on the Canal Zone which he has not walked 
over and seen, with the result that his knowledge 
of the progress of the work is not only precise but 
personal. But to return to the house a-building. 
On arrival there three or four workmen were found 
plugging away in a leisurely manner under the eye 
of a foreman to whom the Colonel straightway 
addressed himself, "You understand the orders 
relative to this job"? he said to the foreman, 
tentatively. 

"Oh, yes. Colonel", responded that functionary 
cheerfully, "it is ordered for October first, and we 
are going to do our very best". 

"Pardon me", blandly but with a suspicion of 
satire, "I was afraid you did not understand the 
order and I see I was right. Your order is to have 
this house ready for occupancy October first. There 
isn't anything said about doing your best. The 
house is to be finished at the time fixed". 



198 PANAMA AND , THE CANAL 

Turning, the Colonel walked away, giving no 
heed to the effort of the foreman to reopen the con- 
versation. Next day that individual called on the 
prospective tenant. 

"Say", he began ingratiatingly, "you don't really 
need to be in that house October first, do you? 
Would a few days more or less make any difference 
to you"? 

"Not a bit". 

"Well then", cheering up, "won't you just tell 
the Colonel a little delay won't bother you"? 

"Not I! I want to stay on this Isthmus. If 
you want to try to get the Colonel's orders changed 
you do it. But none of that for me". 

And the day before the time fixed the house was 
turned over complete. 

It is fair to say however that peremptory as is 
Col. Goethals in his orders, and implacable in his 
insistence on literal obedience, he yields to the orders 
of those who rank him precisely what he exacts from 
those whom he commands. The following dialogue 
before the House Committee on Appropriations will 
illustrate my point. The subject matter was the 
new Washington Hotel at Colon. 

" The Chairman: Did you ever inquire into the 
right of the Panama Railroad Company, under the 
laws of the State of New York, to go into the hotel 
business"? 

''Col. Goethals: No sir; I got an order from the 



COL. GOETHALS AT THE THROTTLE 199 

President of the United States to build that hotel 
and I built it". 

This military habit of absolute command and 
implicit obedience is not attended in Col. Goethals* 
case with any of what civilians are accustomed to 
call "fuss and feathers". On the Zone he was never 
seen in uniform, and it is said, indeed, that he brought 
none to Panama. His mind in fact is that of the 
master, not of the martinet. If he compels obedi- 
ence, he commands respect and seems to inspire real 
affection. In a stay of some weeks at Panama during 
which time I associated intimately with men in every 
grade of the Commissioner's service I heard not one 
word of criticism of his judgment, his methods or 
even his personality. This is the more remarkable 
when it is considered how intimately his authority 
is concerned with the personal life of the Isthmian 
employees. If one wishes to write a magazine 
article pertaining to the Canal Zone, the manuscript 
must be submitted to the Colonel. If complaint 
is to be made of a faulty house, or bad commissary 
service, or a negligent doctor, or a careless official 
in any position, it is made to the Colonel. He is the 
Haroun al Raschid of all the Zone from Cristobal 
to Ancon. To his personal courts of complaint, held 
Sunday mornings when all the remainder of the 
Canal colony is at rest, come all sorts and condi- 
tions of employees with every imaginable grievance. 
The court is wholly inofficial but terribly effective. 



200 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

There is no uniformed bailiff with his cry of "Hear 
ye! Hear ye"! No sheriff with jingHng handcuffs. 
But the orders of that court, though not registered 
in any calf -bound law books for the use of genera- 
tions of lawyers, are obeyed, or, if not obeyed, en- 
forced. Before this judge any of the nearly 50,000 
people living under his jurisdiction, speaking 45 
different languages, and citizens in many cases of 
nations thousands of miles away, may come with 
any grievance, however small. The court is held 
of a Sunday so as not to interfere with the work 
of the complainants, for you will find that on the 
Zone the prime consideration of every act is to 
avoid interference with work. The Colonel hears 
the complaints patiently, awards judgment promptly, 
and sees that it is enforced. There is no system 
of constitutional checks and balances in his domain. 
He is the legislative, judicial and executive branches 
in one — or to put it less technically but more under- 
standably, what the Colonel says goes. It is, I 
think, little less than marvelous that a man in the 
continual exercise of such a power shotdd awaken 
so little criticism as he. It is true that those who 
displease him he may summarily deport, thus effec- 
tually stilling any local clamor against his policy, but 
I am unable to discover that he has misused, or 
even often used, this power. 

A young man comes in with an important problem 
affecting the social life of the Zone. His particular 



COL. GOETHALS AT THE THROTTLE 201 

dancing club desires to use the ball room at the 
Tivoli Hotel on a certain night, but the room was 
engaged for that date and the other nights suggested 
did not fit the convenience of the club, so there was 
nothing to do but to put it up to the Colonel. That 
official straightway put aside the responsibilities of 
the head of a $400,000,000 Canal job and President 
of the Panama Railway to fix a date whereon the 
young folk of that aspiring social club might Turkey 
trot and Tango to their heart's content. So far as 
I know the Colonel has not yet been appealed to 
by the moralists of the Zone to censor the dances. 

Troubles between workmen and their bosses of 
course make up a considerable share of the business 
before the court. Once a man came in with an 
evident air of having been ill-used. He had been 
discharged and the Colonel promptly inquired why. 

"Because I can't play baseball", was the sur- 
prising response of the discharged one, who had 
been a steamshoveler. 

It appeared on inquiry that the drill men had 
challenged the steamshovelers to a match at the 
national game, and dire apprehensions of defeat filled 
the minds of the latter because they had no pitcher. 
At this juncture there providentially appeared a 
man seeking a job who was a scientific twirler 
whether he knew much about steamshoveling or 
not. The American sporting spirit was aroused. 
The man with the job who couldn't pitch lost it 



202 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

to the man who could but had no job. So he came 
to the Colonel with his tale of woe. 

Now that sagacious Chief Engineer knows that 
the American sporting spirit is one of the great 
forces to be relied upon for the completion of the 
Canal. The same sentiment which led the shovelers 
to use every device to down the drillers at baseball 
would animate them when they were called to fight 
with the next slide for possession of Culebra Cut. 
Some employers would have sent the man back to 
his boss with a curt order of reinstatement — and 
the shovelers would have lost the game and some- 
thing of their spirit. So after a moment of reflec- 
tion the Colonel said quietly to the man : 

"They want shovelers on the Pacific end. Go 
over there in the morning and go to work". 

The feudal authority, the patriarchal power which 
Col. Goethals possesses over the means of liveliliood 
of every man on the Zone, nay more, over their 
very right to stay on the Zone at all, gives to his 
decisions more immediate effect than attends those 
of a court. The man who incurs his displeasure 
may lose his job, be ousted from his lodgings and 
deported from the Isthmus if the Colonel so decrees. 

A Jamaican negress came in to complain that her 
husband took her earnings away from her; would 
not work himself but lived and loafed on the fruits 
of her industry. The Colonel ordered the man to 
allow her to keep her earnings. The man demurred 



COL. GOETHALS AT THE THROTTLE 203 

saying sullenly that the English law gave a husband 
command over his wife's wages. 

"All right," said the Colonel, "you're from 
Jamaica. I'll deport you both and you can get 
all the EngHsh law you want". 

The husband paid back the money he had con- 
fiscated and the pair stayed. 

Family affairs are aired in the Colonel's court to 
a degree which must somewhat abash that simple 
and direct warrior. What the dramatists call "the 
eternal triangle" is not unknown on the Zone, nor 
is the unscriptural practice of coveting your neigh- 
bor's wife wholly without illustration. For such 
situations the Colonel's remedy is specific and swift — 
deportation of the one that makes the trouble. 
Sometimes the deportation of two has been found 
essential, but while gossip of these untoward inci- 
dents is plentiful in the social circles of Culebra 
and Ancon the judge in the case takes no part in it. 

It is not in me to write a character sketch of 
Col. Goethals. That is rather a task for one who 
has known him intimately and has been able to 
observe the earlier manifestations of those qualities 
that led President Roosevelt to select him as the 
supreme chief of the canal work. All his life he 
has been an army engineer, having a short respite 
from active work in the field when he was professor 
of engineering at West Point. Fortifications and 
locks were his specialties and fortifications and locks 



204 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

have engaged his chief attention since he undertook 
the Panama job. Perhaps it is due to his intensely 
mihtary attitude that the public has insensibly come 
to look upon the canal in its quality as an aid to 
national defense rather than a stimulus to national 
commerce. For the Colonel any discussion of the 
need for fortifying the canal was the merest twaddle, 
and he had his way. He begged long for a standing 
army of 25,000 men on the Zone, but it is doubtful 
whether he will win this fight. Moreover he would 
so subordinate all considerations to the military one 
that he urges the expulsion from the Zone of all 
save canal employees that the danger of betrayal 
may be less. How far that policy shall be approved 
by Congress is yet to be determined. Thus far 
however the Colonel has handled Congress with 
notable success and even there his dominant spirit 
may yet triumph. 

Early in Col. Goethals' regime the great depart- 
ment of engineering and construction was split into 
three subdivisions, namely, 

The Atlantic Division, comprising the canal from 
deep water in the Caribbean to, and including, the 
Gatun locks and dam. In all this covered about 
seven miles of the canal only, but one of its most j 
difficult and interesting features. j 

The Central Division, including Gatun Lake and ' 
the Culebra Cut to the Pedro Miguel lock, or about | 
32 miles of canal. 



COL. GOETHALS AT THE THROTTLE 205 

The Pacific Division, including the Pedro Miguel 
and Miraflores locks, and the canal from the foot 
of the latter to deep water in the Pacific. 

Under this classification will be described the 
construction work on the canal, work which at the 
time of the author's visit was clear to view, im- 
pressive in its magnitude, appalling in the mtilti- 
plicity of its details, and picturesque in method and 
accomplishment. With the turning of the water 
into the channel all this will be hidden as the works 
of a watch disappear when the case is snapped shut. 
The canal, they say, and rightly, will be Goethals* 
monument — though there are those who think it a 
monument to Col. Gorgas, while quite a few hold 
that the fame of Theodore Roosevelt might be 
further exalted by this work. But whomsoever it 
may commemorate as a monument it was even 
more impressive in the building than in the com- 
pleted form. 

One Sunday late in my stay on the Isthmus I 
was going over the line from Ancon to Culebra. 
As we approached the little tunnel near Miraflores 
I noticed an imusual stir for the day, for on the 
Canal Zone the day of rest is almost religiously 
observed. Men were swarming along the line, 
moving tracks, driving spikes, ramming ballast. I 
asked one in authority what it all meant. "Oh", 
said he, "we're going to begin running dirt trains 
through the tunnel, and that necessitates double 



2o6 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

tracking some of the line. The Colonel said it 
must be done by tomorrow and we've got more 
than 1000 men on the job this quiet Siinday. The 
Colonel's orders you know". 

Yes, I knew, and everybody on the Canal Zone 
knows. 



CHAPTER VIII 

GATUN DAM AND LOCKS 

ENTERING the Panama Canal from the 
Atlantic, one finds the beginning of that 
section called by the engineers the Atlantic 
Division, four miles out at sea in Limon Bay, a 
shallow arm of the Caribbean on the shore of which 
are Colon and the American town of Cristobal. 
From its beginning, marked only by the outer- 
most of a double line of buoys, the canal extends 
almost due south seven miles to the lowest of the 
Gatun Locks. Of this distance four miles is a channel 
dredged out of the bottom of Limon Bay and the 
bottom width of the canal from its beginning to the 
locks is 500 feet. Its depth on this division will be 41 
feet at mean tide. For the protection of vessels en- 
tering the canal at the Atlantic end, or lying in Colon 
harbor, a great breakwater 10,500 feet, or a few 
feet less than two miles long, made of huge masses 
of rock blasted along the line of the Canal, or 
especially quarried at Porto Bello, extends from 
Toro Point to Colon light. In all it will contain 
2,840,000 cubic yards of rock and its estimated 
cost is $5,500,000. 
In the original plans for the harbor of Cristobal 

207 



208 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

a second breakwater was proposed to extend at an 
angle to the guard one, but the success of the former 
in breaking the force of the seas that are raised by 
the fierce northers that blow between October and 
January has been so great that this may never be 
needed. Its need is further obviated by the 
construction of the great mole of stone and concrete 
which juts out from the Cristobal shore for 3500 
feet at right angles to the Canal. From this mole 
five massive piers will extend into the harbor, jutting 
out like fingers on a hand, each 1000 feet long and 
with the space between them 300 feet wide so that 
two 1000 foot ships may dock at one time in each 
slip. The new port of Cristobal starts out with 
pier facilities which New York had not prepared for 
the reception of great ships like the "Vaterland" 
and the "Aquitania" at the time of their 
launching. 

From the shore of the bay to the first Gatun lock 
is a little less than four miles. The French dug a 
canal penetrating this section, a canal which forms 
today part of our harbor and which has been used 
to some extent for the transportation of material for 
the Gatun dam. Our engineers however abandoned 
it as part of our permanent line, and it is rapidly 
filling up or being over-grown by vegetation. At 
its best it was about fifteen miles long, 15 feet 
deep as far as Gatun, and 7 feet deep thence to 
the now vanished village of Bohio. 




Photo 3 by Underwood & Underwood, 
I. GATUN LAKE AND LOCK. 2. THE WATER AT GATUN LOCKS. 
3. TRAVELLING CRANES AT WORK 





Plioto 1 bu Undcnoood & Underwood 
I. VIEW SHOWING PAIR OF LOCKS. 2. DIAGRAM SHOWIXG HEIGHT 
OF LOCK AND PROPORTIONS OF THE CONDUITS 



GATUN DAM AND LOCKS 209 

method of building the dam at Gatun was 
L enough even though it sounds compHcated in 

the I ng. When Congress acquiesced in the minority 
report of the Board of International Engineers, ap- 
proved by the President and recommending a lock 
type canal, it meant that instead of simply digging 
a ditch across the Isthmus we would create a great 
artificial lake 85 feet above sea level, confined by 
dams at either end, with locks and two short canals 
to give communication with the oceans. To create 
this lake it was determined to impound the waters 
of the Chagres, and a site near the village of Gatun, 
through which the old French canal passed, was 
selected for this purpose. Conditions of topography 
of course determined this site. The Chagres valley 
here is 7920 feet wide, but the determining fact was 
that about the center of the valley was a hill of 
rock which afforded solid foimdation for a concrete 
dam for the spillway. Geologists assert that at one 
time the floor of the valley was 300 feet higher 
than now, and that in the ages the Chagres River 
cut away the shallow gorges on either side of the 
rocky hill. These, it was determined, could readily 
be obstructed by a broad earth dam of the type 
determined upon, but for the spillway with its 
powerhouse and floodgates a rock foundation was 
essential and this was furnished by the island. 

The first step in the construction of the dam was 
to dam the Chagres then flowing through its old 



210 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

channel near the site chosen for the spillway, and 
through the old French canal. This was accom- 
plished by building parallel walls, or "toes" of 
broken stone and filling the space between with 
fluid mud pumped from the old channel of the 
stream. A new channel of course was provided 
called the "west diversion." The toes are about a 
quarter of a mile apart and rise about 30 feet high. 
They were built by the customary devices of building 
trestles on which dump trains bearing the material 
were run. After the core of fluid silt pumped in 
between the walls had begun to harden, dry earth 
was piled upon it, compressing it and squeezing out 
the remaining moisture. As this surface became 
durable the railroad tracks were shifted to it, and 
when I visited the dam in 19 13 the made land of 
the dam was tmdistinguishable from the natural 
ground surrounding it. Over it scores of locomotives 
were speeding dragging ponderous trains heavy laden 
with "spoil" from the Culebra Cut. From the crest 
on the one hand the dam sloped away in a gentle 
declivity nearly half a mile long to the original 
jungle on the one side, and a lesser distance on the 
other to the waters of the Gatun Lake then less than 
half filled. When the main body of the dam had 
been completed and the spillway was ready to carry 
off the waters of the Chagres then flowing through 
the "west diversion" the task of damming the latter 
was completed. 



GATUN DAM AND LOCKS 211 

To the unprofessional observer the Gatun dam 
is a disappointment as a spectacle. It does not 
look like a dam at all, but merely like a continua- 
tion of one of the hills it connects. But as a matter 
of fact it is the greatest dam in the world — a mile 
and a half long, 105 feet high, half a mile thick at 
its base, 398 feet at the surface of the lake and 100 
feet wide at the top. It is longer and higher than 
the Assouan dam which the British built across the 
Nile though the latter, being all of masonry, is vastly 
the more picturesque. Into the entire work has 
gone about 21,000,000 cubic yards of material. 

When the tricky Chagres gets on one of its rainy 
season rages the spillway by which the dam is 
pierced at about its center will be one of the spec- 
tacular points on the Canal line. That river drains 
a basin covering 1320 square miles, and upon which 
the rains in their season fall with a persistence and 
continuity known in hardly any other comer of the 
earth. The Chagres has been known to rise as 
much as 40 feet in 24 hours, and though even this 
great flood will be measurably lowered by being 
distributed over the 164 square miles in Gatun Lake, 
yet some system of controlling it by outlets and 
floodgates was of course essential to the working 
and the safety of the Canal. The spillway is the 
center of this system, the point at which is the 
machinery by which the surface of Gatun Lake 
can be at all times kept within two feet of its 



212 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

normal level, which is 85 feet above the level of 
the sea. 

Fundamentally the spillway is a channel 1200 
feet long and 285 feet wide cut through the solid 
rock of the island which at this point bisects the 
now obliterated Chagres Valley. Though cut 
through rock it is smoothly lined and floored with 
cement; closed at its upper end by a dam, shaped 
like the arc of a circle so that, while it bars an opening 
of only 285 feet, its length is 808 feet. For the 
benefit of the unprofessional observer it may be 
noted that by thus curving a dam in the direction 
of the force employed against it, its resisting power 
is increased. It resists force exerted horizontally 
precisely as an arch resists force, or weight, exerted 
from above. The dam at the spillway extends 
solidly across the opening to a height of 69 feet. 
But this is 16 feet below the normal level of the 
Lake. From the top of the solid dam rise thirteen 
concrete piers to a height as planned, of 115 feet 
above sea level, that is the piers will rise 46 feet 
above the top of the dam. Between each two of 
these piers will be mounted regulating gates of steel 
sheathing, made watertight and movable up or 
down as the state of the Chagres level requires a 
free or a restricted passage for the water. Nor will 
those operating the gates await the visual appear- 
ance of the flood before throwing wide the passage 
for its onrush. At divers points along the Chagres, 



GATUN DAM AND LOCKS 213 

and throughout its water shed are little stations 
whence observers telephone at regular intervals 
throughout the day to the office at the spillway 
the result of their observations of the river's height. 
With these figures at hand the controller of the gates 
can foresee the coming of a flood hours before it 
begins to beat against the gates. 

The spillway further serves a useful and an 
essential purpose in that it harnesses the water 
power of the useful Chagres, and turns it into 
electric power to open and shut the colossal gates of 
the various locks; to propel the electric locomotives 
that tow the great ships through the concrete 
channels; to light the canal towns and villages, and 
the lighthouses on the line; to run the great cranes 
at Balboa and Cristobal; to run the machinery in 
the shops at Balboa; to furnish motive power if 
so determined for the Panama Railroad, and to 
swing the great guns at Toro Point and Naos 
Island until their muzzles bear with calm yet fright- 
ful menace upon any enemy approaching from 
either the Caribbean or the Pacific. 

The Gatun locks are built at the very eastern 
end of Gatun dam, at the point where it joins the 
mainland bordering the Chagres valley. Of their 
superficial dimensions I have already spoken, and 
have described their appearance as seen from the 
deck of a ship in passage. It will be hard however 
for one who has not stood on the concrete floor 



214 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

of one of these massive chambers and looked upward 
to their crest, or walking out on one of the massive 
gates peered down into their depths, to appreciate 
their full size. It is all very well to say that the 
"Imperator", the greatest of ships now afloat, could 
find room in one of these locks with five feet at each 
side, and nearly fifty feet at each end to spare, 
but then few of us have seen the Imperator and 
nobody has seen her in the lock. It is all very 
well to figure that a six-story house would not rise 
above the coping of one of these locks, but imagina- 
tion does not visualize the house there, and moreover 
there are stories and stories in height. Yet as one 
stood on the floor of one of these great monolithic 
tanks as they were being rushed to completion in 
19 1 3, and saw locomotives dwarfed by the ponderous 
walls betwixt which they plied, and whole trains of 
loaded dump cars swallowed up in a single lock 
chamber, one got some idea of the magnitude of 
the work. A track for a traveling crane extended 
down the center of the chamber and the monster 
rumbled back and forth carrying loads of material 
to their appointed destinations. Across the whole 
width of the Canal below the locks stretched cable 
carriers upheld by skeleton devices of steel mounted 
on rails so that the pair of them, though separated 
by 500 feet of space, spanned by the sagging cables, 
could be moved in unison. Out on the swinging 
cables ran the loaded cars or buckets, filled with 



GATUN DAM AND LOCKS 215 

concrete and dumped with a crash and a roar at the 
chosen place. Giant mixers ground up rock from 
Porto Bello, sand from Nombre de Dios, and cement 
from divers states of our union into a sort of Brob- 
dignagian porridge with which the hungry maws of 
the moulds were ceaselessly fed. Men wig-wagged 
signals with flags across gaping chasms. Steam 
whistles blew shrill warnings and cryptic orders. 
Wheels rumbled. Pulleys creaked. It seemed that 
everything a man could do was being done by 
machine, yet there was an army of men directing, 
correcting and supplementing the mechanical labor. 

Into the locks at Gatim will go 2,000,000 cubic 
yards of concrete if the original estimate is adhered 
to. A statistician estimates that it would build a 
wall 8 feet wide and 12 feet high and 133 miles long 
— which would just about wall off the state of Dela- 
ware from the rest of the Union. 

The side walls of each of the locks are practically 
monoliths, constructed of concrete poured into great 
steel frames or moulds where it hardens into a 
solid mass. They are based in the main on bed 
rock, though it was found on making tests that 
the bed rock was not of sufficient extent to sup- 
port the guide walls, so one of these is therefore made 
cellular to lighten its weight, which rests on piles of 
60 feet long capped and surrounded with concrete. 
This wall was built by slow stages and allowed to 
stand in order that its settlement might be uniform. 



2i6 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

A vital feature of the locks is, of course, getting 
the water into and out of them, and the method of 
operating the gigantic gates. The former is simple 
enough of explanation, though the modus operandi 
will be entirely concealed when the locks are in 
operation. Through each of the side walls, and 
through the center walls which divide the pairs of 
locks, runs a tunnel i8 feet in diameter. To put 
it more graphically a tunnel large enough to take a 
mogul locomotive of the highest type. From this 
main tunnel smaller ones branch off to the floors 
of the locks that are to be served, and these smaller 
chutes are big enough for the passage of a farmer's 
wagon with a span of horses. These smaller chutes 
extend under the floor of the lock and connect with 
it by valved openings, the valves being operated by 
electricity. There is no pumping of the water. 
Each lock is filled by the natural descent of the water 
from the lock above or from the lake. By the use 
of the great culvert in the central wall the water 
can be transferred from a lock on the west side of 
the flight to one on the east, or vice versa. Though it 
hardly seems necessary, every possible device for the 
conservation of the water supply has been provided. 

We will suppose a vessel from the Atlantic reaches 
Gatun and begins to climb to the lake above. The 
electric locomotives tow her into the first lock, which 
is filled just to the level of the Canal. The great 
gates close behind her. 



GATUN DAM AND LOCKS 217 

How do they close? What unseen power forces 
those huge gates of steel shut against the dogged 
resistance of the water? They are 7 feet thick, 65 
feet long and from 47 to 82 feet high. They weigh 
from 390 to 730 tons each. Add to this weight the 
resistance of the water and it becomes evident that 
large power is needed to operate them. At Gattin 
in the passing of a large ship through the locks, it 
will be necessary to lower four fender chains, operate 
six pairs of miter gates and force them to miter, 
open and close eight pairs of rising stem gate-valves 
for the main supply culverts, and thirty cylindrical 
valves. In all, no less than 98 motors will be set 
in motion twice during each lockage of a single 
ship, and this number may be increased to 143, 
dependent upon the previous position of the gates, 
valves and other devices. Down under the surface 
of the lock wall, packed into a little crypt which 
seems barely to afford room for its revolving, is a 
great cogwheel 5 feet in diameter, revolving slowly 
and operating a ponderous steel arm which thrusts 
out or pulls back the gate as desired. The bull 
wheel, they call it, is driven by a 27 horse power 
motor, while a smaller motor of 7)^ horse power 
locks the gates tight after they are once in position. 
Two of these bull wheels, and two each of the 
motors are needed for each pair of gates. 

The ship then is in the lowest lock, one pair of 
gates closed tightly behind her. Another pair con- 



2i8 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

fronts her holding back the water in the lock above, 
which if filled, will be just 28}^ feet above the 
surface of that on which she floats. But the water 
about her is now slowly rising. Another set of 
electric motors concealed in the concrete wall have 
set in motion the valves in the floor of the lock, 
and the water is flowing in from the tunnels, raising 
the ship and at the same time lowering the water in 
the lock above. When the vessel's keel is higher than 
the sill of the lock above the upper gates swing slowly 
back and fold in flat with the wall. The ship is 
now in a chamber 2000 feet long filled to a level. 
The locomotives pull her forward a thousand feet 
or so. Again great gates close behind her. Again 
the water rises slowly about her lifting her with it. 
The first process is repeated and she enters the 
third lock. By the time she has been drawn out 
into the lake and the locomotives have cast her off, 
more than 100 electric motors with a horse power 
ranging from 7}^ to 50 each will have contributed 
to her progress. Altogether over 1000 individual 
motors will be required for the different locks. 
Indeed the whole interior of those massive lock 
walls is penetrated by Hghted galleries strung with 
insulated wires bearing a death-dealing current. Men 
will be stationed at the various machinery rooms, 
but the whole line of machinery will be operated 
from a central operating tower on the lock above. 




Photo 2 by Underwood & Underwood 

I. THE SPILLWAY AT GATUN. 2. GIANT PENSTOCKS FOR THE 
SPILLWAY 




I. LOWER ENTRANCE TO GATUN LOCKS. 2. DL\GRAM OF GATE- 
OPERATING MACHINERY. 3. VIEW OF OPERATING MACHINERY 



CHAPTER IX 

GATUN LAKE AND THE CHAGRES RIVER 

THAT section of the Canal which for the con- 
venience of engineering records and directions 
is known as the Central Division, comprises 
within its boundaries two of the great spectacular 
features of the Isthmus — Gatun Lake and the 
Culebra Cut. The creation of the lake depended 
on the type of canal to be selected. A sea-level 
canal could not exist with the lake; a lock canal 
could not have been built without it. The meander- 
ings of the Chagres, crossing and recrossing the only 
practicable line for the Canal, and its passionate 
outbursts in the rainy season made it an impossible 
obstacle to a sea-level canal, and all the plans for 
a canal of that type contemplated damming the 
stream at some point above Gatun — at Bohio, 
Gamboa or Alhajuela — and diverting its outflow 
into the Pacific. On the other hand the lock canal 
could not be built without some great reservoir of 
water to repeatedly fill its locks, and to supply the 
water-power whereby to operate them. Hence 
Gatun Lake was essential to the type of canal we 
adopted. 
Every land comes to be judged largely by its 

219 



220 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

rivers. Speak of Egypt and you think of the Nile; 
India suggests the Ganges; England the Thames; 
and France the Seine. The Chagres is as truly 
Panamanian as the Rhine is German and there have 
been watches on the Chagres, too, when buccaneers 
and revolutionists urged their cayucas along its 
tortuous highway. It was the highway by which 
the despoilers of Peru carried their loot to the At- 
lantic on the way to Spain, and along its tide drifted 
the later argonauts who sought the golden fleece in 
California in the days of '49. The poet too has sung 
it, but not in words of praise. Listen to its most 
famous lyric from the pen of James Henry Gilbert. 
Panama's most famous bard and most cruel critic. 

"Beyond the Chagres River 

Are the paths that lead to death — 
To the fever's deadly breezes, 

To malaria's poisonous breath! 
Beyond the tropic foliage, 

Where the alligator waits, 
Are the mansions of the Devil — 

His original estates. 

A much maligned stream is the River Chagres. 
Pioneers, pirates, prospectors and poets have vied 
with each other in applying the vocabulary of con- 
tumely and abuse to it, and the practitioners of 
medicine have attached its name to a peculiarly 
depressing and virulent type of tropical fever. But 



GATUN LAKE AND THE CHAGRES 221 

the humble native loves it dearly and his homes, 
either villages of from ten to forty family huts, 
or mere isolated cabins, cling to its shores all the 
way from Fort Lorenzo to the head waters far 
beyond the boundary of the Canal Zone. The 
native too has something of an eye for the pic- 
turesque. Always his huts are erected on a bluff 
of from 15 to 40 feet rise from the river, with the 
ground cleared before them to give an unblocked 
view of the stream. Whether by accident or be- 
cause of a real art instinct he is very apt to 
choose a point at a bend in the river with a 
view both up and down the stream. Possibly, 
however, art had less to do with his choice than 
an instinct of self-defense, for in the days of 
Isthmian turbulence, or for that matter today, the 
rivers were the chief highways and it was well to 
be on guard for hostile forces coming from either 
direction. 

I saw the upper Chagres in the last days of its 
existence as a swirling stream full of rapids, rushing 
along a narrow channel between banks sometimes 
rising in limestone cliffs 60 feet high and capped 
by dense tropical foliage ascending perhaps as much 
higher into the blue tropical sky. The river was 
at its best and most picturesque as at the opening 
of the dry season we poled our way up from Matachin 
towards its source. Then Matachin was a hamlet 
of canal workers, and a weekly market for the 



222 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

natives who brought thither boat-loads of oranges, 
bananas, yams and plantains. Sometimes they 
carried stranger cargoes. I heard a commission 
given one native to fetch down a young tiger for 
somebody who wanted to emulate Sarah Bernhardt 
in the choice of pets. Iguanas, the great edible 
lizard of Panama, young deer, and cages of parrots 
or paroquets occasionally appear. But as a market 
Matachin is doomed, for it is to be submerged. 
With it will go an interesting discussion of the 
etymology of its name, one party holding that it 
signifies "dead Chinamen" as being the spot where 
imported Chinese coolies died in throngs of home- 
sickness during the construction of the Panama 
Railroad. But the word also means "butcher" in 
Spanish and some think it commemorates some 
massacre of the early days. However sanguinary 
its origin there will presently be water enough to 
wash out all the stains of blood. In 19 13 the place 
was one of the principal zone villages, with large 
machine shops and a labor colony exceeding 1500 
in number. All vanishes before the rising lake, 
which will be here a mile wide. 

The native craft by which alone the Chagres 
could be navigated prior to the creation of the lake 
are long, slender canoes fashioned usually from the 
trunks of the espeve tree, hollowed out by fire and 
shaped within and wdthout with the indispensable 
machete. It is said that occasionally one is hewa 



GATUN LAKE AND THE CHAGRES 223 

from a mahogany log for the native has little idea 
of the comparative value of the different kinds of 
timber. Mahogany and rosewood logs worth thou- 
sands of dollars in New York are doing humble 
service in native huts in Panama. But the native 
has a very clear imderstanding of the comparative 
labor involved in hewing out a hardwood log, and 
the cayucas are therefore mainly of the softer espev6, 
a compact wood with but little grain which does not 
crack or splinter when dragged roughly over the 
rocks of the innumerable rapids. The river cayuca 
is about 25 feet long with an extreme beam of about 
23^ feet and a draft of 6 to 10 inches. Naturally 
it is crank and can tip a white man into the stream 
with singular celerity, usually righting itself and 
speeding swiftly away with the rushing current. 
But the natives tread it as confidently as though 
it were a scow. For up-stream propulsion long poles 
are used, there being usually two men to a boat, 
though one man standing in the stern of a 30-foot 
loaded cayuca and thrusting it merrily up stream, 
through rocky rapids and swirling whirlpools, is no 
uncommon sight. 

Our craft was longer — 35 feet in all, and in the 
official service of the Canal commission had risen 
to the dignity of a coat of green paint besides having 
a captain and a crew of two men. Our captain, 
though but in his nineteenth year was a person of 
some dignity, conveying his orders to the crew in 



224 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

tones of command though not averse to joining in 
the lively badinage with which they greeted passing 
boatmen, or rallied maidens, washing linen in the 
streams, upon their slightly concealed charms. The 
corrupt Spanish they spoke made it difficult to do 
more than catch the general import of these playful 
interchanges. Curiously enough the native peasant 
has no desire to learn English, and frequently con- 
ceals that accomplishment, if he has attained it, 
as though it were a thing of which to be ashamed. 
This attitude is the more perplexing in view of the 
fact that the commission pays more to English- 
speaking natives. 

"This boy Manuel", said my host to me in low 
tones, "understands English and can speak it after 
a fashion, but rarely does so. I entrapped him once 
in a brief conversation and said to him, 'Manuel, 
why don't you speak English and get on the roll of 
English-speaking employees ? You are getting $62 . 50 
gold a month now; then you'd get $75 at least'. 

"Manuel dropped his English at once. *No 
quiero aprender a hablar ingles', said he. 'Para 
mi basta el espanol'". (I don't care. Spanish good 
enough for me.) 

Manuel indeed was the son of the alcalde of his 
village, and the alcalde is a person of much power 
and of grandeur proportionate to the number of 
thatched huts in his domain. The son bore himself 
as one of high lineage and his face indeed, Caucasian 



GATUN LAKE AND THE CHAGRES 225 

in all save color, showed that Spanish blood pre- 
dominated over the universal admixtxire of negro. 
He saved his money, spending less than $10 a month 
and investing the rest in horses. 

Above Cruces the banks of the Chagres begin 
to rise in perpendicular limestone cliffs, perhaps 
60 or 70 feet high, while from their crests the giant 
tropic trees, the wild fig, the Panama, the Ceiba 
and the sentinel rise yet another one hundred feet 
into the bright blue sky. Amongst them flash back 
and forth bright-colored parrots and paroquets, 
kingfishers like those of our northern states, only 
gaudier, and swallows innumerable. Up and down 
the river fly heavy cormorants disturbed by the 
clank of the poles among the stones of the river 
bottom, but not too shy to come within 50 feet or 
so of our boat where, much to my satisfaction, there 
is no gun. White and blue herons stand statuesque 
in the shallows with now and then an aigret. Of 
life other than feathered one sees but little here. 
A few fish leaped, but though the river was crystal- 
line and my guide assured me it was full of fish I 
saw none lurking in either deeps or shallows. Yet 
he must have been right, for the natives make much 
of fish as an article of diet, catching them chiefly 
by night lines or the unsportsmanlike practice of 
dynamiting the stream, which has been prohibited 
by the Panama authorities, although the prohibi- 
tion is but little enforced. 



226 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

Now and then an alligator slips lazily from the 
shore into the stream, but they are not as plentiful 
here as in the tidal waters of the lower river. Oc- 
casionally, too, a shrill cry from one of our boat- 
men, taken up by the other two at once, turns 
attention to the underbrush on the bank, where the 
ungainly form of an iguana is seen scuttling for 
safety. Ugliest of beasts is the iguana, a greenish, 
bulbous, pop-eyed crocodile, he serves as the best 
possible model for a dragon to be slain by some 
St. George. The Gila monster of Arizona is a 
veritable Venus of reptiles in comparison to him, 
and the devil fish could give him no lessons in re- 
pulsiveness. Yet the Panamanian loves him dearly 
as a dish. Let one scurry across the road, or, 
dropping from a bough, walk on the surface of a 
river — as they literally do — and every dark-skinned 
native in sight will set up such a shout as we may 
fancy rose from oldtime revelers when the boar's 
head was brought in for the Yuletide feast. Not 
more does the Mississippi darkey love his 'possum 
an' sweet 'taters, the Chinaman his bird's-nest 
soup and watermelon seeds, the Frenchman his 
absinthe or the German his beer than does the 
Panamanian his iguana. 

In a mild way the Chagres may lay claim to being 
a scenic stream, and perhaps in future days when 
the excellence of its climate in the winter becomes 
known in our United States, and the back waters 



GATUN LAKE AND THE CHAGRES 227 

of the lake have made its upper reaches navigable, 
excursion launches may ply above Cruces and almost 
to Alhajuela. Near the latter point is a spot which 
should become a shrine for Progressive RepubHcan 
pilgrims. A low cliff of white limestone, swept 
clear of vegetation and polished by the river at 
high water, describes an arc of a circle hollowed out 
by the swift river which rushes underneath. Springs 
on the bluff above have sent out little rivulets which 
trickling down the face of the stone have scarred 
it with parallel vertical grooves a foot or two apart. 
Seen from the further side of the stream it bears a 
startling likeness to a huge human upper jaw with 
glistening teeth. With a fine sense of the fitness of 
things the river men have named it "Boca del 
Roosevelt" — Roosevelt's mouth. 

Some of the fluviograph stations are located far 
beyond the limits of the Canal Zone, but by the 
terms of the treaty with the Republic of Panama 
the Canal Commission has over such headwaters 
and reaches of the Chagres such jtirisdiction as 
may be necessary for the protection and regulation 
of Gatim Lake. We went to one of these stations 
some 20 miles of poling up the Chagres beyond 
Alhajuela. The keeper was a native of the Canary 
Islands who had mastered English sufficiently to 
make his reports over the 'phone. His wife, who 
greeted us in starched cotton with a pink hair 
ribbon, pink shoes and a wealth of silver ornaments, 



228 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

was a native, dark of complexion as a Jamaica 
negress, but her sister who was there on a visit was 
as white as a Caucasian. Doctors on the Zone say 
that these curious variations in type in the same 
family are so common that they can never foretell 
within several shades the complexion of a baby 
about to be born. 

The keeper of this station was paid $65.50 monthly 
and the Commission supplied his house which was 
of the native type and cost about $85. Though 
many children, pickaninnies, little Canaries and non- 
descripts hung about his door, his living expenses 
were practically nothing. Expense for clothing 
began only when the youngsters had reached 11 or 
12 years of age and thereafter were almost negligible 
— as indeed were the clothes. The river furnished 
fish, the jungle iguanas, wild pigs and birds; the 
little garden-patch yams, bananas, mangoes and 
other fruits. He was far removed from the 
temptations of Matachin, or other riotous mar- 
ket places and he saved practically all of his 
pay. His ambition was to get enough to re- 
turn to his native isles, buy a wine- shop and 
settle down to a leisurely old age — though no 
occupation could much outdo for laziness the task 
of watching for the rising of the Chagres in the 
dry season. 

Returning from the upper waters of the Chagres 
one reaches Gatun Lake at Gamboa where the rail- 



GATUN LAKE AND THE CHAGRES 229 

way bridge crosses on seven stone piers. A little 
above is a fluviograph station fitted with a wire 
cable extending across the stream and carrying a 
car from which an observer may take measurements 
of the crest of any flood. Indeed the river is watched 
and measured to its very sources. It long ago 
proved itself unfit for trust, and one who has seen 
it in flood time, 40 feet higher than normal, bearing 
on its angry tawny bosom houses, great trees, 
cayucas stolen from their owners and dead animals, 
sweeping away bliiffs at bends and rolling great 
boulders along its banks, will readily understand 
why the builders of the Canal stationed scouts 
and spies throughout the Chagres territory to send 
ample and early warning of its coming wrath. 

Leaving the Chagres, turning into Gatun Lake 
and directing oiir course away from the dam and 
toward the Pacific end of the Canal, we traversed a 
broad and placid body of water interspersed with 
densely wooded islands, which very soon narrows to 
the normal width of the Canal. In midsummer, 
19 1 3, when the author conducted his inspection, a 
broad dyke at Bas Obispo cut off Gatun Lake and 
its waters from the Canal trench, then dry, which 
here extends in an almost straight line, 300 feet 
wide, through steadily rising banks to the conti- 
nental divide at Culebra. 



CHAPTER X 

THE CULEBRA CUT 

TECHNICALLY what is known as the Culebra 
Cut extends from Bas Obispo to the locks at 
Pedro Miguel, a distance of nine miles. To 
the general public understanding, however, the term 
applies only to the point of greatest excavation be- 
tween Gold Hill and Contractors Hill. But at Bas 
Obispo the walls of the Canal for the first time rise 
above the water level of Gatim Lake. At that point 
the cutting begins, the walls rising higher and higher, 
the Canal pressing stubbornly onward at a dead 
level, until the supreme height of the continental 
divide is attained at Gold Hill. Thenceforward on 
the line toward Panama City the hills grow lower 
until at the entrance to the locks at Pedro Miguel 
the banks sink practically to the water level. Out 
of this nine-mile stretch there had been taken up to 
January i, 1913, just 88,531,237 cubic yards of mate- 
rial, and it was then estimated that there then re- 
mained to be excavated 5,351,419 cubic yards more. 
But the later estimate was destined to be largely 
increased, for, after the date at which it was made, 
the number and extent of "slides" in the deepest 
part of the cut increased to staggering proportions. 

230 



THE CULEBRA CUT 231 

Col. D. D. Gaillard, Member of the Commission 
and Division Engineer in charge of the Cnlebra Cut, 
estimated in 19 12 that in all 115,000,000 cubic yards 
would have to be removed. 

To the general public the slides seemed to menace 
the very existence and practicability of the Canal, 
though the engineers knew that they began even 
with the superficial excavating done by the French, 
and had therefore made allowance for them in their 
estimates. Not sufficient allowance, however, was 
made, and as month after month brought tidings 
of new slides, with terrifying details of such inci- 
dents as whole forests moving, vast cracks opening 
in the earth, large buildings in imminent danger of 
being swept into the Cut, the bottom of the Canal 
mysteriously rising ten to fifteen feet in the air, 
while smoke oozed from the pores of the adjacent 
earth — when such direful reports filled the news- 
papers the public became nervous, almost aban- 
doning hope of the success of the great enterprise. 

This attitude of apprehension on the part of the 
public is scarcely surprising. If the Capitol Park 
at Washington, with the National Capitol cresting 
it, should suddenly begin to move down into Penn- 
sylvania Avenue at the rate of about three feet a 
day the authorities of the city would nattually feel 
some degree of annoyance. And if the smooth and 
level asphalt of that historic thoroughfare should, 
overnight, rise up into the air 18 feet in spots, those 



232 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

responsible for traffic might not unreasonably be 
somewhat worried. 

Such a phenomenon would not be so startling in 
mere magnitude as the slides which added so greatly 
to the work of the engineers on the Canal, and made 
tourists, wise with the ripe fruits of five days' ob- 
servation, wag their heads knowingly when Col. 
Goethals calmly repeated his assertion that the water 
would be turned in by August. The Colonel, how- 
ever, had not withdrawn or even modified this 
prophecy so late as July i, 191 3. Despite the 
almost daily news of increased activity of the slides, 
he clung with tenacity to his purpose of putting a 
ship through in October. 

If these slides were an entirely new and unex- 
pected development, for which no allowance of either 
time or money had been made in the estimates of 
the Canal builders, they would of course justify the 
apprehension they have awakened in the non-pro- 
fessional mind. But the slides were in fact antici- 
pated. The first slide recorded during our work 
on the Isthmus was in 1905; the others have only 
been bigger, and have been bigger only because the 
Canal being dug deeper has weakened the bases of 
even bigger hills along the banks. All the same, 
the proportions of the slides are terrifying and the 
chief geologist declared that they would not cease 
until the angle of the Canal bank became so gentle 
that gravity would not pull the crest down. 



THE CULEBRA CUT 233 

The slides are of two sorts. The simpler is a mere 
swift rush of all the loose surface dirt, sand, gravel 
and stone down the surface of the bank. These 
gravity slides, mere dirt avalanches, though trouble- 
some, present no new problems. To stop them it is 
necessary only to carry the crest of the bank further 
back, so that the angle will be less steep. But the 
great, troublesome slides are those caused by the 
pressure of the hill-top on its imdermined and weak- 
ened base. These originate at the top of the hill, 
making their presence known by gaping fissures 
opening in the earth and extending in lines roughly 
parallel to the Canal. Once started the whole mass, 
acres in extent, moves slowly toward the cavity of 
the Canal, three feet a day being its swiftest recorded 
progress. At Culebra the slides compelled the mov- 
ing of a large part of the town away from the edge of 
the Cut, lest it be swept into the gorge. The Cule- 
bra Y. M. C. A. clubhouse, the largest on the Zone, 
had to be torn down to escape this peril. 

As the slide moves slowly downward, its colossal 
weight applied at points where nature had made no 
provision for it forces the earth upward at the 
point where it can offer the least resistance, namely 
the bed of the Canal. Sometimes this upheaval, so 
mysterious to the non-technical mind, attains a 
height of eighteen feet. Again, the friction of this 
huge mass of stone and gravel creates heat, which 
turns into steam the rills of water that everywhere 



234 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

percolate through the soil. The upheaval of the 
Canal bed and the occasional outpourings of steam 
have led at times to exaggerated and wholly im- 
founded reports in the newspapers of volcanic action 
being one of the new problems with which the Canal 
builders had to grapple. 

The story told about the extent of the slides is 
sufficiently alarming, but the calmness with which 
Col. Goethals and his lieutenants meet the situation 
is reassuring. According to the official report there 
were twenty-six slides and breaks in Culebra Cut to 
January i, 1913, with a total area of 225 acres. 
Since that date many others have occurred. It is 
estimated that because of slides between 21,000,000 
and 22,000,000 cubic yards of material in excess of 
the original estimate will have been taken out of 
the Cut before completion. This is just about one- 
fifth of the total amount of excavation, dry and 
wet, estimated originally for the whole Canal. But 
the attitude of the engineers toward this addition 
to their labors was merely one of calm acceptance of 
the inevitable and a dogged determination to get 
the stuff out of the way. The slides were an ob- 
stacle, so was the whole Isthmus for that matter. 
But all that was necessary was to keep the shovels 
working, and the slides would be removed and the 
Isthmus pierced. 

To my mind one of the finest evidences of the 
spirit animating the Canal force was the fashion in j 



THE CULEBRA CUT 235 

which this problem of the slides has been approached. 
It was at first disappointing, almost demoralizing, 
to find overnight the work of weeks undone and the 
day when "finis" could be written to the volume 
put far over into the future. But the only effect 
was a tighter grip on the pick and the shovel, a 
new determination to force through the Canal. 
Culebra was approached as Grant approached Vicks- 
burg. To reduce it and to open the Canal to traffic, 
as Grant opened the Mississippi to the steamboats 
of the nation, took more time than was at first ex- 
pected, but it had to be done. The dirt could not 
always slide in faster than it could be carted out, 
for in time there would be no dirt left to slide. And 
so, undismayed and intent upon success, the whole 
force from Col. Goethals to the youngest engineer 
moved on Culebra and the doom of that stubborn 
block to progress was sealed. 

To the imscientific mind the slides are terrifying 
in their magnitude and in the evidence they give 
of irresistible force. Man can no more check their 
advance than he can that of a glacier, which in a way 
they resemble. When I was on the Isthmus the 
great Cucaracha slide was in progress, and had been 
for that matter since 1907. It had a total area of 
47 acres and extended up the east bank of the Canal 
for about 1900 feet from the axis of the Canal. 
When it began its progress was disconcertingly rapid. 
Its base, foot, or "toe" — these anatomical terms in 



236 PANAMA AND^ THE CANAL 

engineering are sometimes perplexing — moved across 
the Canal bed at the rate of 14 feet a day. All that 
stood in its path was buried, torn to pieces or carried 
along with the resistless glacier of mud. Not content 
with filling the Canal from one side to the other, the 
dirt rose on the further side to a height of about 
30 feet. Not only was the work of months obliter- 
ated, but work was laid out for years to come. In- 
deed in 19 13 they were still digging at the Cucaracha 
slide and the end was not in sight. This slide was 
wholly a gravity slide, caused by a mass of earth 
slipping on the inclined surface of some smooth and 
slippery material like clay on which it rests. The 
nature of the phenomenon is clearly shown by the 
diagram printed on another page with the illustra- 
tions of typical slides. 

On the west bank of the Canal occurred a slide 
of the second type caused by the crushing and 
squeezing out of underlying layers of soft material 
by the prodigious pressure of the high banks left 
untouched by the steam shovels. This slide is usually 
accompanied by the uprising of the bed of the Canal 
sometimes to a height of thirty feet. Col. Gaillard 
tells of standing on the bed of the Canal, observing 
the working of a steam shovel, when it gradually 
dawned upon him that he was no longer on the level 
of the shovel. At first he thought that the shovel 
must have been placed upon a bit of boggy land and 
was slowly sinking, but on investigation he discov- 




I. THE BEGINNING OF A SLIDE. 2. DIAGRAM OF THE SLIDES. 
3. MOUND FORCED UP IN BED OF CANAL 



THE CULEBRA CUT 237 

ered that the point on which he was standing had 
been slowly rising until within five minutes he had 
been lifted six feet without jar and with no sensation 
of motion. A perfectly simple illustration of the 
way in which this elevation of the bed of the Canal 
is caused may be obtained by pressing the hand 
upon a pan of dough. The dough will of course rise 
at the side of the hand. On the "big job" the 
towering hills furnished the pressure, the bed of 
the Canal rose like the dough. To cope with it 
the work of the shovels and dirt trains in the 
Canal carrying the debris away is supplemented by 
others above removing the crest of the slide and thus 
lightening the pressure. I have seen four terraces 
of the same slide bearing steam shovels and rumbling 
dirt trains hiurying the debris away to where it will 
no longer be a menace. 

The Culebra slide possessed a certain remorseless- 
ness which was not manifested by any of the others 
in quite so picturesque a way. For this slide, with 
apparently human malice, attacked not only the 
work done on the Canal proper, but like a well-di- 
rected army moved on the headquarters of its foe. 
Its first manifestation appeared in the form of a 
wide crack in the earth at the crest of the hill on 
which sits the town of Culebra, and directly in 
front of the building used by Col. Gaillard as divi- 
sion headquarters for the engineers. Retreat was 
the only course possible in the face of such an en- 



238 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

emy and the building was sacrificed. The Culebra 
Y. M. C. A. clubhouse, too, was a point of attack 
for the remorseless foe. It stood on the very crest 
of the hill, a beautiful building on a most beautiful 
site. The serpent of Culebra Cut — the word "cule- 
bra" means snake — saw this pleasant place of rest 
and marked it for his own. Nothing remained but 
to rally a force of men and tear the building down 
for reerection at some other point. It was probably 
the largest and most attractive clubhouse on the 
Zone, but where it once stood there was a nearly 
sheer drop of about sixty feet, when first I visited 
the scene of the slide. Before the spot too on 
which the engineering headquarters had stood, there 
was a patch of lawn that had slid some eighty feet 
down into the Cut. With it traveled along a yoimg 
eucalyptus tree waving its leaves defiantly in the 
face of the enemy that was bearing it to irrevocable 
disaster. Whether the Culebra slide had attained 
its fullest proportions in 19 13 could not be told with 
certainty, though the belief was current that it had. 
While the crest of the hill had not been fully reached 
the top of the slide began at the edge of a sort of 
jog or terrace that extended away from the Cut 
some distance on a level before the ground began 
to slope upward again. Should it extend further a 
very considerable and beautiful part of the town 
would be destroyed, but as it is to be abandoned in 
any event on the completion of the Canal, this phase 



THE CULEBRA CUT 239 

of the matter does not give the Commission much 
concern. 

A third slide, of lesser proportions, which seriously 
complicated the work of the engineers, occurred near 
Empire in August, 1912. Here about 400,000 cubic 
yards of rock slipped into the Cut, wrecking cars, 
destroying tracks and machinery and flooding the 
Canal with water from the Obispo diversion. It is not 
generally known that parallel to the Canal at various 
points are dug smaller canals, or big ditches, for the 
purpose of catching and carrying off the heavy an- 
nual rainfall on the Canal watershed. These di- 
version ditches cost much in time and labor. One 
was constructed by the French. Another, 5)^ miles 
long, known as the Obispo diversion, cost $1,250,000 
and was absolutely essential to the construction of 
the Canal. The rock slide, above referred to, broke 
down the barrier between the Canal cut and the di- 
version ditch and filled the former with an untimely 
flood which it took time to stay and pump out. 

From all parts of the United States citizens inter- 
ested in the progress of the Canal — and only those at 
the work can tell how widespread and patriotic that 
interest is — have sent suggestions for checking these 
slides. Virtually all have been impracticable — a 
few only indeed have been thought worthy of being 
put to the test. One that for a time seemed worth 
trying was the suggestion that the wall of the cut 
be plastered with concrete, binding its surface to- 



240 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

gether in a solid mass. But upon that being done it 
was demonstrated that the slides were not super- 
ficial but basic, and concrete face and all went down 
to one general destruction when the movement be- 
gan. One curious fact about the slides is that they 
do not invariably sHde down throughout their entire 
course. Occasionally they take a turn upward. 
One tree at Cucaracha was pointed out to me which 
after moving majestically down for a space was 
carried upward over a slope for lOO feet, and then 
having passed the crest of the hill started down again. 
The slides are by no means wholly in the wet 
season despite the popular impression to that 
effect, though it was in the height of that season that 
the one at Cucaracha began. Yet I have seen a slide 
moving slowly in January when the shovels digging 
fiercely at its base were enshrouded in clouds of 
dust. Curiously enough, though tracks have been 
torn up, machinery engulfed and wrung into indis- 
tinguishable tangles of steel, no man was caught 
in any of these avalanches prior to May, 191 3, 
when three were thus lost. The tax they have 
put upon time and labor, however, has been heavy 
enough. Within the 8|- miles of the Culebra Cut 
fully 200 miles of track have been covered up, de- 
stroyed or necessarily rebuilt because of slides, and 
at one point tracks had to be maintained for nearly 
two years on ground moving from three or four inches 
to several feet a day. Of course this necessitated 



THE CULEBRA CUT 241 

the constant work of repair gangs and track layers. 
When the Canal is completed nearly 22% of the ex- 
cavation will have been of material put in the way 
by slides — a fact which seems to give some belated 
support to the prophecy of the early Spanish the- 
ologians that God would not permit the Isthmus to 
be pierced, but would array new and unexpected 
forces against so blasphemous an effort to interfere 
with His perfect work. 

One feature of the slides which would surely have 
awed the pious prophets of the Spanish day, and 
which did indeed considerably perplex our more 
prosaic engineers, was the little wisps of smoke that 
arose from the slowly moving soil. That this was 
volcanic few believed, except some newspaper cor- 
respondents in eager search for sensations. The 
true explanation that heat generated by friction 
working upon the water in the earth caused the 
steam was all very well and complete as an explana- 
tion of that particular phenomenon. But it left a 
certain worried feeling in the minds of the men who 
spent their days in putting hundreds of plugs of 
dynamite into holes drilled in the rock which the 
scientists declared superheated. Dropping a dyna- 
mite cartridge into a red-hot rock is apt to create 
a menace to the continued life and health of the 
dropper which even the excellent sanitary brigade 
of Col. Gorgas could scarcely control successfully. 
For a time there was a halt in the blasting opera- 



242 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

tions and indeed two blasts were fired prematurely 
by this natural heat, but fortunately without loss 
of life. Finally the scheme was devised of thrust- 
ing an iron pipe into the drill hole and leaving it 
there a few minutes. If it was cool to the touch on 
withdrawal all was well; if hot a stream of water 
was kept playing in the hole while the charge was 
inserted and tamped down. 

Dynamite has been man's most useful slave in 
this great work, but like all slaves it now and then 
rises in fierce and murderous revolt. "Though 
during the past three and one-quarter years, in work 
tmder the writer's charge", writes Col. Gaillard, 
"over 20,000,000 pounds of dynamite were used in 
blasting. But eight men have been killed, three 
of whom failed to go to a safe distance and were 
Idlled by flying stones, and two by miscounting the 
number of shots which had gone off in a 'dobe' 
group, and approaching the group before the last 
shot had exploded". 

Something like 12,000,000 pounds of dynamite a 
year was imported from "the states" to keep the 
job going, over 6,000,000 pounds a year being used 
in Culebra Cut alone, and many an unsuspecting 
passenger danced over the tossing Atlantic waves 
with a cargo beneath him explosive enough to blow 
him to the moon. On the Zone the stuff is handled 
with all the care that long familiarity has shown to 
be necessary, but to the uninitiated it looks careless 



THE CULEBRA CUT 243 

enough. It is however a fact that the accidents 
are continually lessening in number and in fatalities 
caused. The greatest accident of all occurred De- 
cember 12, 1908, when we had been only four years 
on the job. It was at Bas Obispo, and in order to 
throw over the face of a hill of rock that rose from 
the west bank of the Canal at that point nearly 
44,000 pounds of dynamite had been neatly tamped 
away in the holes drilled for that purpose. Actually 
the last hole of this prodigious battery was being 
tamped when it exploded and set off all the others. 
A colossal concussion shook all the face of the earth. 
The side of the hill vanished in a cloud of smoke and 
dust from which flying rocks and trees rose into the 
air. When the roar of the explosion died away 
cries of anguish rose on the trembling air. About 
the scene of the explosion an army of men had been 
working, and of these 26 had been killed outright 
and a host more wounded. No such disaster has 
ever occurred again, though there have been several 
small ones and many narrow escapes from large ones. 
Once a steam shovel taking its accustomed bite 
of four or five cubic yards of dirt engulfed at the 
same time about a bushel of dynamite left from the 
French days. Again the teeth of a shovel bit upon 
the fulminate cap of a forgotten charge. In both 
these cases the miraculous happened and no ex- 
plosion occurred. When one reads in the Official 
Handbook issued by the Commission that a pound 



244 PANAMA ^AND THE CANAL 

of dynamite has been used to about every two cubic 
yards of material blasted, and compares it with the 
total excavation of about 200,000,000 cubic yards, 
one thinks that even the undoubted sins of the 
Isthmus during its riotous days are expiated by such 
a vigorous blowing up. 

One day at Matachin an engineer with whom I 
was talking called a Spaniard and sent him off on 
an errand. I noticed the man walked queerly and 
commented on it. " It's a wonder that fellow walks 
at all", said my friend with a laugh. "He was 
sitting on a ledge once when a blast below went off 
prematurely and Miguel, with three or four other 
men, and a few tons of rock, dirt and other debris 
went up into the air. He was literally blown at 
least 80 feet high, the other men were killed, but 
we found signs of life in him and shipped him to the 
hospital where he stayed nearly eight months. I'd 
hesitate to tell you how many bones were broken, 
but I think the spine was the only one not fractured 
and that was dislocated. His job is safe for the 
rest of his life. He loves to tell about it. Wait 
'til he gets back and I'll ask him". 

Presently Miguel returned, sideways like a crab, 
but with agility all the same. "Tell the gentleman 
how it feels to be blown up", said the engineer. 

"Caramba! I sect on ze aidge of ze cut, smoke 
my pipe, watch ze work when — Boom! I fly up in 
air, up, up! I stop. It seem I stop long time, I 



^ 




.•' '^^^'*'"* 




Plwlo 1 (c), Phtjlu J bu Underwood ct Under uuml 

I. GETTING OUT A DIRT TRAIN. 2. DRILLS AND STEAM SHOVELS 
AT WORK 



THE CULEBRA CUT 245 

see ozzair sings fly up past me. I start down — 
I breathe smoke, sand. Bang! I hit grotind. 
When I wake I in bed at hospital. Can't move. 
Same as dead"! 

"Miguel never fails to lay stress on the time he 
stopped before beginning his descent", comments 
my friend, "and on the calmness with which he 
viewed the prospect, particularly the other things 
going up. His chief sorrow is that no moving pic- 
ture man took the incident". 

Incidents of heroic self-sacrifice are not unknown 
among the dynamite handlers. Here is the story 
of Angel Alvarez, an humble worker on the Big 
Job. He was getting ready a surface blast of dyna- 
mite and all around him men were working in calm 
assurance that he would notify them before the ex- 
plosion. Happening to glance up he saw a great 
boulder just starting to slip down the cut into the 
pit where he stood with two open boxes of dynamite. 
He knew that disaster impended. He could have 
jumped from the pit and run, saving himself but sacri- 
ficing his comrades. Instead he shouted a frantic 
warning, and seizing the two boxes of dynamite thrust 
them aside out of the way of the falling boulder. 
There was no hope for him. The rock would have 
crushed him in any event. But one stick of dyna- 
mite fell from one of the boxes and was exploded — 
though the colossal explosion that might have oc- 
curred was averted. They thought that Alvarez 



246 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

was broken to bits when they gathered him up, but 
the surgeons patched him up, and made a kind of a 
man out of him. Not very shapely or vigorous is 
Angel Alvarez now, but in a sense he carries the 
lives of twenty men he saved in that moment of 
swift decision. 

The visitor to the Cut diuing the period of con- 
struction found two types of drills, the tripod and 
the well, busily preparing the chambers for 
the reception of the dynamite. Of the former there 
were 221 in use, of the latter 156. With this battery 
over 90 miles of holes have been excavated in a 
month, each hole being about 27 feet deep. The drills 
are operated by compressed air supplied from a main 
rimning the length of the Cut and are in batteries 
of three to eight manned by Jamaica negroes who 
look as if the business of standing by and watching 
the drill automatically eat its way into the rock 
heartily agreed with their conception of the right 
sort of work. 

He who did not see the Culebra Cut during the 
mighty work of excavation missed one of the great 
spectacles of the ages — a sight that at no other 
time or place was, or will be, given to man to see. 
How it was best seen many visits left me unable to 
determine. From its crest on a working day you 
looked down upon a mighty rift in the earth's crust, 
at the base of which pigmy engines and ant-like 
forms were rushing to and fro without seeming plan 



THE CULEBRA CUT 247 

or reason. Through the murky atmosphere strange 
sounds rose up and smote the ear of the onlooker 
with resounding clamor. He heard the strident 
clink, clink of the drills eating their way into the 
rock; the shrill whistles of the locomotives giving 
warning of some small blast, for the great charges 
were set oflE out of working hours when the Cut 
was empty; the constant and uninterrupted rumble 
that told of the dirt trains ever plying over the 
crowded tracks; the heavy crash that accompanied 
the dumping of a six-ton boulder onto a flat car; 
the clanking of chains and the creaking of machinery 
as the arms of the steam shovels swimg around look- 
ing for another load ; the cries of men, and the boom- 
ing of blasts. Collectively the sounds were harsh, 
deafening, brutal, such as we might fancy would arise 
from hell were the lid of that place of fire and tor- 
ment to be lifted. 

But individually each sound betokened useful 
work and service in the cause of man and progress 
as truly as could the musical tinkle of cow bells, the 
murmur of water over a village millwheel, or the 
rude melody of the sailors' songs as they trim the 
yards for the voyage to the distant isles of spice. 
The hum of industry that the poets have loved to 
tell about loses nothing of its significance when from 
a hum it rises to a roar. Only not all the poets can 
catch the meaning of its new note. 

So much for the sounds of the Culebra Cut on a 



248 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

work day. The sights are yet more wonderful. 
One who has looked upon the Grand Canyon of the 
Colorado will find in this man-made gash in the 
hills something of the riot of color that characterizes 
that greatest of natural wonders, but he who has 
had no such preparation will stand amazed before 
the barbaric wealth of hues which blaze forth from 
these precipitous walls. Reds predominate — red of 
as deep a crimson as though Mother Earth's bosom 
thus cruelly slashed and scarred was giving up its 
very life's blood; red shading into orange, tropical, 
hot, riotous, pulsing like the life of the old Isthmus 
that is being carved away to make place for the 
new; red, pale, pinkish, shading down almost to 
rose color as delicate as the hue on a maiden's 
cheek, typifying perhaps the first blush of the bride 
in the wedding of the Atlantic to the Pacific. Yel- 
low too from the brightest orange to the palest 
ochre, and blue from the shade of indigo which Co- 
lumbus hoped to bring across this very Isthmus 
from the bazaars of Cathay; purple as royal as 
Ferdinand and Isabella ever wore, or the paler 
shades of the tropic sky are there. As you look 
upon the dazzling array strung out before you for 
miles you may reflect that imbedded in those parti- 
colored rocks and clays are semi-precious stones of 
varied shades and sorts — beryls, moss agates, blood- 
stones, moonstones which the workmen pick up 
and sell to rude lapidaries who cut and sell them to 



THE CULEBRA CUT 249 

tourists. But in all this colossal tearing up of the 
earth's surface there has been found none of the gold 
for which the first white men lusted, nor any precious 
stone or useful mineral whatsoever. 

Again I looked on the Cut from above one morn- 
ing before the breeze that blows across the Isthmus 
from nine o'clock in the morning until sundown 
had driven out of it the mists of early dawn. From 
unseen depths filled with billowy vapor rose the 
clatter of strenuous toil by men and machines, soft- 
ened somewhat by the fleecy material through which 
they penetrated. Of the workers no sign appeared 
until the growing heat of the sun and the freshening 
breeze began to sweep the Cut clear in its higher 
reaches, and there on the topmost terrace of Gold 
Hill, half a mile across the abyss from where I stood, 
was revealed a monster steam shovel digging away 
at the crest of the hill to lighten the weight that 
was crowding acres upon acres of broken soil into 
the Canal below. It seemed like a mechanical de- 
vice on some gigantic stage, as with noiseless fero- 
city it biuTOwed into the hillside, then shaking and 
trembling with the effort swung back its long arm 
and disgorged its huge mouthful on the waiting fiat 
cars. The curtain of mist was slowly disappearing. 
From my lofty eyrie on an outjutting point of Con- 
tractors Hill it seemed as if the stage was being dis- 
played, not by the lifting of a curtain, but rather 
by the withdrawal of a shield downward so that the 



250 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

higher scenery became first visible. One by one the 
terraces cut into the lofty hillsides were exposed to 
view, each with its line of tugging steam shovels 
and its rows of motionless empty cars, or rolling 
filled ones rumbling away to the distant dump. 
Now and again a sudden eruption of stones and dirt 
above the shield of fog followed in a few seconds by 
a dull boom told of some blast. So dense was the 
mist that one marveled how in that narrow lane 
below, filled with railroad tracks, and with busy 
trains rushing back and forth men could work save 
at imminent danger of disaster. Death lurked there 
at all times and the gray covering of fog was more 
than once in the truest sense a pall for some poor 
mutilated human frame. 

Perhaps the most impressive view of the Cut in 
the days of its activity was that from above. It 
was one which gave the broadest general sense of 
the prodigious proportions of the work. But a 
more terrifying one, as well as a more precise com- 
prehension of the infinity of detail coupled with the 
magnitude of scope of the work was to be obtained 
by plodding on foot through the five miles where the 
battle of Culebra was being most fiercely fought. 
The powers that be — or that were — did not en- 
courage this method of observation. They preferred 
to send visitors through this Death's Lane, this 
confusing network of busy tracks, in an observa- 
tion car built for the purpose, or in one of the trim 



THE CULEBRA CUT 251 

little motor cars built to run on the railroad tracks 
for the use of officials. From the fact that one of 
the latter bore the somewhat significant nickname 
"The Yellow Peril" and from stories of accidents 
which had occurred to occupants of these little 
scouts among the mighty engines of war, I am in- 
clined to think that the journey on foot, if more 
wearisome, was not more perilous. 

Put on then a suit of khaki with stout shoes and 
take the train for Culebra. That will be as good a 
spot as any to descend into the Cut, and we will 
find there some airy rows of perpendicular ladders 
connecting the various levels up and down which an 
agile monkey, or Col. Gaillard or any of his assistants, 
can nin with ease, but which we descend with in- 
finite caution and some measure of nervous appre- 
hension. Probably the first sound that will greet 
your ears above the general clatter, when you have 
attained the floor of the Canal, will be a stentorian 
cry of "Look out, there! Look out"! You will 
hear that warning hail many a time and oft in the 
forenoon's walk we are about to take. I don't know 
of any spot where Edward Everett Hale's motto, 
"Look Out and Not In; Look Up and Not Down; 
Look Forward and Not Back" needs editing more 
than at Culebra. The wise man looked all those 
ways and then some. For trains are bearing down 
upon you from all directions and so close are the 
tracks and so numerous the switches that it is im- 



252 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

possible to tell the zone of safety except by observ- 
ing the trains themselves. If yotir gaze is too in- 
tently fixed on one point a warning cry may call 
your attention to the arm of a steam shovel above 
your head with a five-ton boulder insecurely bal- 
anced, or a big, black Jamaican a few yards ahead 
perfunctorily waving a red flag in token that a 
"dobe" blast is to be fired. A "dobe" blast is re- 
garded with contempt by the fellows who explode 
a few tons of dynamite at a time and demolish a 
whole hillside, but the "dobes" throw fifty to one 
hundred pound stones about in a reckless way that 
compels unprofessional respect. They tell a story 
on the Zone of a negro who, not thinking himself in 
range, was sitting on a box of dynamite calmly 
smoking a cigarette. A heavy stone dropped 
squarely on his head killing him instantly, but was 
sufficiently deflected by the hardness of the Ethio- 
pian skull to miss the box on which the victim sat. 
Had it been otherwise the neighboring landscape and 
its population would have been materially changed. 
It is no wonder that we have trains to dodge dur- 
ing the course of our stroll. There are at the mo- 
ment of our visit 115 locomotives and 2000 cars in 
service in the Cut. About 160 loaded trains go out 
daily, and, of course, about 160 return empty. 
Three hundred and twenty trains in the eight-hour 
day, with two hours' intermission at noon, means 
almost one train a minute speeding through a right 



THE CULEBRA CUT 253 

of way 300 feet wide and much cluttered up with 
shovels, drills and other machinery. In March, 191 1 , 
the record month, these trains handled 1,728,748 
cubic yards of material, carrying all to the dumps 
which average 12 miles distant, the farthest one being 
33 miles. The lay mind does not at first think of 
it, but it is a fact that it was no easy task to select 
spots for all this refuse in a territory only 436 
square miles in area, of which 164 square miles is 
covered by Gatun Lake and much of the rest is 
higher than the Cut and therefore unsuited for 
dumps. The amount of material disposed of would 
create new land worth untold millions could it have 
been dumped along the lake front of Chicago, or in 
the Hackensack meadows near New York. 

To load these busy trains there were in the Cut 
in its busiest days 43 steam shovels mainly of the 
type that would take five cubic yards of material at 
a bite. One load for each of these shovels weighed 
8.7 tons of rock, 6.7 tons of earth, or 8.03 tons of 
the "run of the Cut" — the mixed candy of the Cule- 
bra shop. March 11, 191 1, was the record day for 
work on the Central Division of which the Cut is 
the largest component part. That day 333 loaded 
trains were run out, and as many in, and 51 steam 
shovels and 2 cranes with orange peel buckets ex- 
cavated 127,742 tons of material. It was no day 
for nervous tourists to go sightseeing in the Cut. 

Let us watch one of the steam shovels at work, 



254 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

You will notice first that it requires two railroad 
tracks for its operation — the one on which it stands, 
and one by the side on which are the flat cars it is 
to load. If the material in which it is to work is 
clay or sand the shovel track is run close to the side 
of the hill to be cut away; otherwise the blasters 
will have preceded it and a great pile of broken 
rock lies by the side of the track or covering it be- 
fore the shovel. Perched on a seat which revolves 
with the swinging arm a man guides the great steel 
jaws to the point of excavation. A tug at one lever 
and the jaws begin to bite into the clay, or root 
around in the rock pile until the toothed scoops have 
filled the great shovel that, closed, is rather bigger 
than a boarding house hall bedroom. A tug at 
another lever and they close. A third lever causes 
the arm to swing until it comes to a stop above 
the flat car, then with a roar and a clatter the 
whole load is dumped. Perhaps then the trouble 
is just beginning. Once in a while a boulder of ir- 
regular shape rolls about threatening to fall to the 
ground. With almost human intelligence the great 
rigid arm of the shovel follows it, checking it as it 
approaches the edge of the car, pushing it back, 
buttressing it with other stones, so that when the 
train gets under way it may by no chance fall off. 
Sometimes you see all this done from a point at 
which the directing man is invisible and the efl'ect 
is uncanny. 



THE CULEBRA CUT 255 

Travelers in Burmah are fond of telling how the 
trained elephants pile teak lumber, pushing with 
tusk and pulling with trunk until the beams lie level 
and parallel to an inch. But marvelous as is the 
delicacy with which the unwieldy animals perform 
their work, it is outdone by the miraculous ingenu- 
ity with which the inventive mind of man has 
adapted these monsters of steel to their appointed 
task. We shall see on the Zone many mechanical 
marvels, but to my mind the sight of a man, seated 
placidly in a comfortable chair, and with a touch on 
levers making a twenty-foot steel arm, with a pair 
of scoops each as big as a hogshead at the end, feel 
up and down a bit of land until it comes upon a 
boulder weighing five tons, then pick it up, deposit 
it on a flat car, and block it around with smaller 
stones to hold it firm — this spectacle I think will 
rank with any as an illustration of mechanical 
genius. It is a pity old Archimedes, who professed 
himself able to move the world with a lever 
if he could only find a place for his fulcrum, could 
not sit a while in the chair of an Isthmian steam shov- 
eler. These men earn from $210 to $240 a month 
and are the aristocracy of the mechanical force in a 
society where everybody is frankly graded according 
to his earnings. They say their work is exceedingly 
hard upon the nerves, a statement which I can 
readily credit after watching them at it. Once in a 
great while they deposit the six-ton load of a shovel 



256 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

on top of some laborer's head. Incidents of this 
sort are wearing on their nerves and also upon the 
physique of the individual upon whom the burden 
has been laid. On several occasions I timed steam 
shovels working in the Cut on various sorts of 
material and found the period occupied in get- 
ting a load, depositing it on the car and getting 
back into position for another bite to be a frac- 
tion less than two minutes. According to my 
observations from five to eight shovel loads filled 
a car. The car once filled, a big negro wig- wagged 
the tidings to the engineer who pulled the train 
ahead the length of one car. The Jamaica negro 
wig-wagging is always a pleasing spectacle. He 
seems to enjoy a job as flagman which gives from 
five to fifteen minutes of calm reflection to each 
one minute of wagging. Far be it from me to 
question the industry of these sable Britons by 
whom the Canal is being built. Their worth in any 
place, except that of waiters at the Tivoli Hotel, 
must be conceded. But their specialty is undoubt- 
edly wig-wagging. 

If we climb upon one of the empty flat cars we will 
see that upon the floor of the whole train, usually 
made up of about 20 cars, is stretched a stout cable 
attached to a heavy iron wedge like a snow plow 
which, while the train is loading, is on the end car. 
Hinged sheets of steel fall into place between the 
cars making the train floor continuous from end to 




THE BROW OF GOLD HILL (CULEBRA CUT) 




Photo 2 bu Underwood & Underwood 

I. RAILROAD OVERWHELMED BY A SLIDE. 2. DIRT TRAINS READY 
TO MOVE. 3. A WRECKED STEAM SHOVEL 



THE CULEBRA CUT 257 

end. If we should accompany the train to the 
dump — say at the great fill at Balboa about twelve 
miles from the Cut — we shall find that when it has 
reached its assigned position a curious looking car 
on which is an engine which revolves a huge drum, 
or bull wheel, is attached in place of the locomotive. 
The end of the steel cable buried under hundreds of 
tons of rock and dirt is fastened to the bull wheel, 
the latter begins to revolve and the steel plow be- 
gins to travel along the train thrusting the load off 
to one side. One side of the flat cars is built up 
and the plow is so constructed that the load is 
thrown to the other side only. It takes from 7 to 
15 minutes to unload a train by this device which is 
known as the Lidgerwood Unloader. 

Now it is apparent that after a certain number of 
trains have thus been unloaded the side of the 
track on which the load falls, unless it be a very 
deep ravine, will presently be so filled up that no 
more loads can be dumped there. To smooth out 
this mound of dirt along the track another type of 
snow plow is used, one stretching out a rigid steel 
arm ten or twelve feet from the side of the locomo- 
tive which pushes it into the mass of debris. This 
is called a spreader and as may well be imagined re- 
quires prodigious power. The dump heap thus 
spread, and somewhat leveled by hand labor, be- 
comes a base for another track. 

In the early days of the work this business of 



258 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

shifting tracks required the services of hundreds of 
men. But it grew so steadily under the needs of 
the service — they say the Panama Railway runs 
sideways as well as lengthwise — that the mechanical 
genius of American engineers was called into play 
to meet the situation. Wherefore behold the track- 
shifter, an engine operating a long crane which 
picks up the track, ties, rails and all, and swings 
it to one side three feet or more according to the 
elasticity of the track. It takes nine men to operate 
a track shifter, and it does the work which took 
500 men pursuing the old method of pulling spikes, 
shifting ties and rails separately and spiking the 
rails down again. It is estimated that by this device 
the government was saved several million dollars, 
to say nothing of an enormous amount of time. 
While the Panama Railroad is only 47 miles long it 
has laid almost 450 miles of rails, and these are con- 
tinually being taken up and shifted, particularly 
those laid on the bed of the Canal in Culebra Cut. 
It is perfectly clear that to keep the steam shovels 
within reaching distance of the walls they are to dig 
away, the track on which they operate and the track 
on which their attendant dirt trains run must be 
shifted laterally every two or three days. 

Looking up from the floor of the Canal one had in 
those days of rushing construction a prospect at 
once gigantic, brilliant and awe inspiring. Between 
Gold Hill and Contractors Hill the space open to 



THE CULEBRA CUT 259 

the sky is half a mile wide and the two peaks tower 
toward the sky 534 feet to the one side and 410 on 
the other. We see again dimly through the smoke 
of the struggling locomotives and the fumes of ex- 
ploding dynamite the prismatic color of the stripped 
sides of the hill, though on the higher altitudes un- 
touched by recent work and unscarred by slides 
the tropical green has already covered all traces 
of man's mutilations. In time, of course, all 
this coloring will disappear and the ships will 
steam along betwixt two towering walls of living 
green. 

One's attention, however, when in the Cut is held 
mainly by its industrial rather than by its scenic 
features. For the latter the view from above, al- 
ready described, is incalculably the better. But 
down here in the depths your mind is gripped by 
the signs of human activity on every side. Every- 
thing that a machine can do is being done by ma- 
chinery, yet there are 6000 men working in this 
narrow way, men white and black and of every 
intermediate and indeterminate shade. Men who 
talk in Spanish, French, the gibberish of the Jamai- 
can, in Hindoo, in Chinese. One thinks it a pity 
that Col. Goethals and his chief lieutenants could 
not have been at the Tower of Babel, for in that event 
that aspiring enterprise would never have been 
halted by so commonplace an obstacle as the con- 
fusion of tongues. 



260 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

To us as we plod along all seems to be conducted 
with terrific energy, but without any recognizable 
plan. As a matter of fact all is being directed in 
accordance with an iron-clad system. That train, 
the last cars of which are being loaded on the sec- 
ond level, must be out of the Cut and on the main 
line at a fixed hour or there will be a tie-up of the 
empties coming back from the distant dumps. 
That row of holes must be drilled by five o'clock, 
for the blast must be fired as soon as the Cut is emp- 
tied of workers. The very toiu-ists on the observa- 
tion car going through the Cut must be chary of 
their questions, for that track is needed now for a 
train of material. If they are puzzled by some- 
thing they see, it will all be explained to them later 
by the guide in his lecture illustrated by the working 
model at the Tivoli Hotel. 

So trudging through the Cut we pass under a 
slender foot bridge suspended across the Canal 
from towers of steel framework. The bridge was 
erected by the French and will have to come down 
when the procession of ships begins the passage of 
the Canal. Originally its towers were of wood, but 
a man idly ascending one thought it sounded hollow 
beneath his tread and, on examination, found the 
interior had been hollowed out by termite ants 
leaving a mere shell which might give way under 
any unaccustomed strain. This is a pleasant habit 
of these insects and sometimes produces rather ludi- 



THE CULEBRA CUT 261 

crous results when a heavy individual encounters 
a chair that has engaged their attention. 

The activity and industry of the ant are of course 
proverbial in every clime, but it seems to me that 
in the Isthmus particularly he appears to put the 
sluggard to shame. As you make your way 
through the jungle you will now and again come 
upon his miniature roads, only about four inches wide 
it is true, but vastly smoother and better cleaned of 
vegetation than the paths which the Panamanians 
dignify with the name of roads. Along these high- 
ways trudges an endless army of ants, those going 
homeward bearing burdens of leaves which, when 
buried in their subterranean homes, produce fungi 
on which the insects live. Out on the savanna you 
will occasionally find a curious mound of hard dirt, 
sometimes standing taller than a man and rising 
abruptly from the plain. It is an ant's nest built 
about a shrub or small tree, which usually dies off 
so that no branches protrude in any direction. A 
large one represents long years of the work of the 
tiny insects. Col. Goethals has made a great 
working machine of the Canal organization but 
he can teach the ants nothing so far as patient and 
continuous industry is concerned. 

We come in due time to the upper entrance of 
the Pedro Miguel lock. Here the precipitous sides 
of the Canal have vanished, and the walls of the 
lock have in fact to be built up above the adjacent 



262 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

land. This is the end of the Central Division — the 
end of the Culebra Cut. The 8.8 miles we have 
left behind us have been the scene, perhaps, of the 
most wonderful exercise of human ingenuity, skill 
and determination ever manifested in any equal 
space in the world — and I won't even except Wall 
Street, where ingenuity and skill in cutting things 
down are matters of daily observation. But nowhere 
else has man locked with nature in so desperate a 
combat. More spectacular engineering is perhaps 
to be seen on some of the railroads through our own 
Sierras or on the trans- Andean lines. Such dams 
as the Roosevelt or the Shoshone of our irrigation 
service are more impressive than the squat, im- 
movable ridge at Gatun. But the engineers who 
planned the campaign against the Cordilleras at 
Culebra had to meet and overcome more novel 
obstacles, had to wrestle with a problem more appall- 
ing in magnitude than any that ever confronted 
men of their profession in any other land or time. 

As no link in a chain is of less importance than any 
other link, so the Pacific Division of the Panama 
Canal is of equal importance with the other two. 
It has not, however, equally spectacular features. 
Its locks at Pedro Miguel and at Miraflores are 
merely replicas of the Gatun locks with different 
drops, and separated into one step of two parallel 
locks at the former point, and two steps, with four 
locks in pairs at Miraflores. Between the two locks 



THE CULEBRA CUT 263 

is an artificial lake about 54 2-3 feet above sea level 
and about a mile and a half long. The lake is arti- 
ficial, supplied partly by small rivers that flow into 
it and partly by the water that comes down from the 
operation of the locks above. In fact it was created 
largely for the purpose of taking care of this water, 
though it also served to reduce somewhat the 
amount of dry excavation on the Canal. One ad- 
vantage which both the Gatun and Miraflores lakes 
have for the sailor, that does not at first occur to 
the landsman, is that being filled with fresh water, 
as also is the main body of the Canal, they will 
cleanse the bottoms of the ships passing through 
of barnacles and other marine growths. This is a 
notable benefit to ships engaged in tropical trade, 
for in those latitudes their bottoms become befouled 
in a way that seriously interferes with their steaming 
capacity. 

From the lower lock at Miraflores the Canal de- 
scribes a practically straight course to the Pacific 
Ocean at Balboa, about 43^ miles. The channel is 
continued out to sea about four miles further. All 
the conditions of the Pacific and Oriental trade give 
assurance that at Balboa will grow the greatest of all 
purely tropical ports. To it the commerce of the 
whole Pacific coast of North America, and of South 
America as far south at least as Lima, will irresisti- 
bly flow. To it will also come the trade of Japan, 
Northern China and the Philippines, seeking the 



264 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

shortest route to Europe or to our own Atlantic 
coast. It is true that much of this trade will pass 
by, but the ships will enter the Canal after long voy- 
ages in need of coal and in many cases of refitting. 
The government has anticipated this need by pro- 
viding for a monster dry dock, able to accommodate 
the 1000-foot ships yet to be built, and establishing 
repair shops fit to build ships as well as to repair 
them. In 19 13, however, when this trip through 
the Canal under construction was made, little sign 
of this coming greatness was apparent. The old 
dock of the Pacific Mail and a terminal pier of the 
Panama Railroad afforded sufficient dockage for the 
steamships of which eight or ten a week cleared or 
arrived. The chief signs of the grandeur yet to 
come were the never-ceasing dirt trains rumbling 
down from Culebra Cut and discharging their loads 
into the sea in a great fan-shaped "fill" that will 
afford building sites for all the edifices of the future 
Balboa, however great it may become. Looking 
oceanward you see the three conical islands on 
which the United States is already erecting its 
fortifications. 

Here then the Canal ends. Begun in the ooze of 
Colon it is finished in the basaltic rock of Balboa. 
To carry it through its fifty miles the greatest forces 
of nature have been utilized when possible; fought 
and overcome when not. It has enlisted genius, 
devotion and sacrifice, and has inflicted sickness, 



THE CULEBRA CUT 265 

wounds and death. We can figure the work in 
millions of dollars, or of cubic yards, but to esti- 
mate the cost in life and health from the time the 
French began until the day the Americans ended is 
a task for the future historian, not the present-day 
chronicler. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE CITY OF PANAMA 

FOR an American not too much spoiled with 
foreign travel the city of Panama is a most 
entertaining stopping place for a week or 
more. In what its charm consists it is hard to 
say. Foreign it is, of course, a complete change 
from anything within the borders, or for that 
matter close to the bounds of the United States. 
But it is not so thorough a specimen of Latin- 
American city building as Cartagena, its neighbor. 
Its architecture is admittedly commonplace, the 
Cathedral itself being interesting mainly because 
of its antiquity — and it would be modem in old 
Spain. The Latin gaiety of its people breaks out in 
merry riot at carnival time, but it is equally riotous 
in every town of Central America. Withal there is a 
something about Panama that has an abiding novelty. 
Perhaps it is the tang of the tropics added to the 
flavor of antiquity. Anyhow the tourist who abides in 
the intensely modern and purely United States hotel, 
the Tivoli, has but to give a dime to a Panama hack- 
man to be transported into an atmosphere as foreign 
as though he had suddenly been wafted to Madrid. 
Latter-day tourists complain that the sanitary 

266 



THE CITY OF PANAMA 267 

efforts of the Isthmian Commission have robbed 
Panama of something of its picturesqueness. They 
deplore the loss of the streets that were too sticky 
for the passage of Venetian gondolas, but entirely 
too liquid for ordinary means of locomotion. They 
grieve over the disappearance of the public roulette 
wheels and the monotonous cry of the numbers at 
keno. They complain that the population has taken 
to the practice of wearing an inordinate quantity 
of clothes instead of being content with barely 
enough to pique curiosity concerning the few charms 
concealed. But though the city has been remark- 
ably purified there is still enough of physical dirt 
apparent to displease the most fastidious, and quite 
sufficient moral imcleanliness if one seeks for it, as 
in other towns. 

The entrance by railway to Panama is not pre- 
possessing, but for that matter I know of few cities 
in which it is. Rome and Genoa perhaps excel in 
offering a fine front to the visitor. But in Panama 
when you emerge from the station after a journey 
clear across the continent, which has taken you about 
three hours, you are confronted by a sort of ragged 
triangular plaza. In the distance on a hill to your 
right is set theTivoli Hotel, looking cool and inviting 
with its broad piazzas and dress of green and white. 
To your left is a new native hotel, the International, 
as different from the Tivoli as imaginable, built of 
rubble masonry covered with concrete stucco, with 



268 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

rooms twice as high as those of the usual American 
building. It looks cool too, in a way, and its most 
striking feature is a pleasingly commodious bar, 
with wide open unscreened doors on the level of the 
sidewalk. The Tivoli Hotel, being owned and 
managed by the United States government, has no 
bar. This statement is made in no spirit of invidious 
comparison, but merely as a matter of helpful 
information to the arriving traveler undecided which 
hotel to choose. 

The plaza is filled with Panama cabs — small open 
victorias, drawn by stunted wiry horses like our 
cow ponies and driven by Panama negroes who 
either do not speak English, or, in many cases, 
pretend not to in order to save themselves the 
trouble of explaining any of the sights to their fares. 
There is none of the bustle that attends the arrival 
of a train in an American city. No raucous cries 
of '*Keb, sir? Keb"! no ingratiating eagerness to 
seize upon your baggage, no ready proffer of willing- 
ness to take you anywhere. If the Panama cabby 
shows any interest at all in getting a fare out of an 
arriving crowd it seems to be in evading the one 
who beckons him, and trying to capture someone 
else. One reason perhaps for the lethargy of these 
sable jehus is that the government has robbed their 
calling of its sporting featiu-e by fixing their fare at 
ten cents to any place in town. Opportunity to 
rob a fare is almost wholly denied them, hence their 



THE CITY OF PANAMA 269 

dejected air as compared with the alert piratical 
demeanor of the buccaneers who kidnap passengers 
at the railway stations of our own enlightened land. 
The only way the Panama driver can get the best 
of the passenger is by constniing each stop as the 
end of a trip, and the order to drive on as consti- 
tuting a new engagement involving an additional 
dime. Tourists who jovially drew up to the curb- 
stone to greet acquaintances met en route several 
times in a half-hour's ride are said to have been 
mulcted of a surprising number of dimes, but in 
justice to the Panama hackman — who really doesn't 
have the air of rioting in ill-gotten wealth — I must 
say that I never encountered an instance of this 
overcharge. 

Your first introduction to the beauty of Panama 
architecture comes from a building that fronts you 
as you leave yotu* train. Three stories high it has 
the massive strength of a confectioner's creation, 
and is tastefully colored a sickly green, relieved by 
stripes of salmon pink, with occasional interludes 
of garnet and old gold. The fact that it houses a 
saloon, the proportions of which would be generous 
on the Bowery or South Clark Street, does not explain 
this brilliant color scheme. It is merely the expres- 
sion of the local color sense, and is quite likely to 
be employed to lend distinction to a convent school 
or a fashionable club indiscriminately. 

From the Railway Plaza — originality has not yet 



270 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

furnished a more attractive name — the Avenida 
Centrale stretches away in a generally southerly 
direction to the seawall at the city's end. What 
Broadway is to New York, the Corso to Rome, or 
Main Street to Podunk, this street is to Panama. 
It is narrow and in time will be exceedingly crowded, 
for the rails of a trolley line are laid on one side, 
and some time in the leisurely Panamanian future 
the cars will run through the old town and so on 
out to Balboa where the Americans are building the 
great docks at the entrance to the Canal. Just now 
however it is chiefly crowded with the light open 
carriages which toward eventide carry up and down 
the thoroughfare olive-complexioned gentlemen who 
look smilingly at the balconies on either side whence 
fair ones — of varying degrees of fairness with a 
tendency toward the rich shade of mahogany — look 
down approvingly. 

Panama is an old city, as American cities run, for 
it was founded in 1673 when the Bishop marked 
with a cross the place for the Cathedral. The 
Bishop still plays a notable part in the life of the 
town, for it is to his palace in Cathedral Plaza that 
you repair Sunday mornings to hear the lucky 
number in the lottery announced. This curious 
partnership between the church and the great 
gambling game does not seem to shock or even 
perplex the Panamanians, and as the State turns 
over to the church a very considerable percentage 



THE CITY OF PANAMA 271 

of the lottery's profits it is perhaps only fair for 
the Bishop to be thus hospitable. If you jeer a 
well-informed Panamanian on the relations of his 
church to the lottery he counters by asking suavely 
about the filthy tenement houses owned by Old 
Trinity in New York. As a vested right under 
the Colombian government the lottery will continue 
until 19 1 8, then expire under the clause in the 
Panama constitution which prohibits gambling. 
Drawings are held each Sunday. Ten thousand tick- 
ets are issued at a price of $2.50 each, though the 
custom is to buy one-fifth of a ticket at a time. 
The capital prize is $7500 with lesser prizes of 
various sums down to one dollar. The Americans 
on the Zone buy eagerly, but I could not learn of 
any one who had captured a considerable prize. 
One official who systematically set aside $5 a week 
for tickets told me that, after four years' playing, 
he was several hundred dollars ahead "besides the 
fun". 

Though old historically, Panama is modern archi- 
tecturally. It was repeatedly swept by fires even 
before the era of overfumigation by the Canal 
builders. Five fires considerable enough to be called 
"great" are recorded. Most of the churches have 
been burned at least once and the facade of the 
Cathedral was overthrown by an earthquake. The 
San Domingo Church, the Church and Convent of 
San Francisco, and the Jesuit Church still stand in 



272 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

ruins. In Italy or England these ruins would be 
cared for, clothed by pious, or perhaps practical, 
hands with a certain sort of dignity. Not so in 
Panama. The San Domingo Church, much visited 
by tourists because of its curious flat arch, long 
housed a cobbler's bench and a booth for curios. 
Now its owner is utilizing such portions of the ruin 
as are still stable as part of a tenement house he 
is building. When reproached for thus obliterating 
an historic relic he blandly offered to leave it in 
its former state, provided he were paid a rental 
equal to that the tenement would bring in. There 
being no society for the preservation of historic 
places in Panama his offer went unheeded, and the 
church is fast being built into the walls of a flat- 
house. As for the Church of the Jesuits its floor 
is gone, and cows and horses are stabled in the sanc- 
tuary of its apse. 

The streets of Panama look older than they really 
are. The more substantial buildings are of rubble 
masonry faced with cement which quickly takes on 
an appearance of age. Avenida Centrale is lined 
for all but a quarter of a mile of its length with 
shops, over which as a rule the merchant's family 
lives — for the Panamanians, like other Latins, have 
not yet acquired the New York idea that it is vulgar 
to live over your own place of business but perfectly 
proper to live two miles or more away over someone 
else's drug store, grocery, stationery store, or what 



THE CITY OF PANAMA 273 

not. There might be an essay written on the 
precise sort of a business place above which it is 
correct for an American to Hve. Of course the 
nature of the entrance counts, and much propriety- 
is saved if it be on the side front thus genteelly con- 
cealing from guests that there are any shops in the 
building at all. These considerations however are 
not important in Panama, and many of the best 
apartments are reached through dismal doors and 
up winding stairways which seldom show signs of 
any squeamishness on the part of the domestics, or 
intrusive activity by the sanitary officers. 

Often however the apartments reached by such 
uninviting gateways are charming. The rooms are 
always big, equivalent each to about three rooms of 
our typical city fiat. Great French windows open 
to the floor, and give upon broad verandas from 
which the life of the street below may be observed — 
incidentally letting in the street noises which are 
many and varied. The tendency is to the minimum 
of furniture, and that light, so as to admit easy 
shifting to the breeziest spots. To our northern 
eyes the adjective "bare" would' generally apply 
to these homes, but their furnishings are adapted to 
the climate and to the habits of people living largely 
out of doors. Rents are high for a town of 35,000 
people. A five-room flat in a fairly good neighbor- 
hood will rent for from $60 to $75 gold a month, and 
as the construction is of the simplest and the land- 



274 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

lord furnishes neither heat nor janitor service, it 
seems a heavy return on the capital invested. 

It seemed to me, as the result of questioning and 
observation rather than by any personal experience, 
that living expenses in Panama City must be high, 
and good living according to our North American 
ideas impossible. What the visitor finds in the 
homes of the people on the Canal Zone offers no 
guide to the conditions existing in the native town. 
For the Zone dwellers have the commissary to buy 
from, and that draws from all the markets of the 
world, and is particularly efficient in buying meats, 
which it gets from our own Beef Trust and sells for 
about half of what the market man in Chicago or 
New York exacts. But the native Panamanian has 
no such source of supply. His meats are mainly 
native animals fresh killed, and if you have a taste 
for sanguinary sights you may see at early dawn 
every morning numbers of cattle and hogs 
slaughtered in a trim and cleanly open-air abattoir 
which the Panamanians owe to the Canal authori- 
ties. However the climate tends to encourage a 
fish and vegetable diet, and the supplies of these 
staples are fairly good. The family buying is done 
at a central market which it is well worth the 
tourists' time to visit. 

Every day is market day at Panama, but the 
crowded little open-air mart is seen at its best of 
a Saturday or Sunday in the early morning. All 



THE CITY OF PANAMA 275 

night long the native boats, mostly cayucas hewn 
out of a single log and often as much as 35 feet long, 
and with a schooner rig, have been drifting in, pro- 
pelled by the never-failing trade wind. They come 
from the Bayano River country, from Chorrera, 
from Taboga and the Isles of Pearls, from the Bay 
of San Miguel and from the land of the San Bias 
Indians. Great sailors these latter, veritable vikings 
of the tropics, driving their cayucas through shriek- 
ing gales when the ocean steamers find it prudent 
to stay in port. 

Nature helps the primitive people of the jungle 
to bring their goods to the waiting purchasers. 
The breeze is constant, seldom growing to a gale, 
and the tide rising full 20 feet enables them to run 
their boats at high tide close to the market cause- 
way, and when the tide retires land their products 
over the fiats without the trouble of lighterage. 
True the bottom is of mud and stones, but the 
soles of the seamen are not tender, nor are they 
squeamish as to the nature of the soil on which 
they tread. 

The market is open at dawn, and the buyers 
are there almost as soon as the sellers, for early 
rising is the rule in the tropics. Along the side- 
walks, on the curbs, in the muddy roadway even, 
the diverse fruits and food products of the country 
are spread forth to tempt the robust appetites of 
those gathered about. Here is an Indian woman, 



276 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

the color of a cocoanut, and crinkled as to skin 
like a piece of Chinese crepe. Before her is spread 
out her stock, diverse and in some items curious. 
Green peppers, tomatoes a little larger than a small 
plum, a cheese made of goat's milk and packed to 
about the consistency of Brie; a few yams, peas, 
limes and a papaya or two are the more familiar 
edibles. Something shaped like a banana and 
wrapped in corn husks arouses my curiosity. 

"What is it"? "Five cents". "No, no! I 
mean what is it? What's it made of"? "Fi 
centavo"! 

In despair over my lack of Indo-Spanish patois, 
I buy it and find a little native sugar, very moist 
and very dark, made up like a sausage, or a tamale 
in corn husks. Other mysterious objects turn out 
to be ginseng, which appeals to the resident Chinese ; 
the mamei, a curious pulpy fruit the size of a large 
peach, with a skin like chamois and a fleshy looking 
pit about the size of a peach-stone; the sapodilla, 
a plum-colored fruit with a mushy interior, which 
when cut transversely shows a star-like marking and 
is sometimes called the star apple. It is eaten 
with a spoon and is palatable. The mamei, how- 
ever, like the mango, requires a specially trained 
taste. 

While puzzling over the native fruits a sudden 
clamor attracts us to a different part of the market. 
There drama is in full enactment. The market 










I. PANAMA SEA WALL. 2. CITY OF PANAMA FROM ANCON HILL. 
3. PANAMA CATHEDRAL AND PLAZA 




l.Ol.l) IKENTll AimiMSlKA I ION HIILDING, PANAMA. 2. AVEXIDA 
CENTRALE, PANAMA. 3. THE WATERSIDE MARKET, PANAMA 



THE CITY OF PANAMA 277 

place is at the edge of the bay and up the water 
steps three exultant fishermen have dragged a tuna 
about five feet long, weighing perhaps 175 pounds. 
It is not a particularly large fish of the species, but 
its captors are highly exultant and one, with the 
bom instinct of the Latin-American to insult a 
captive or a fallen foe, stands on the poor tuna's 
head and strikes an attitude as one who invites 
admiration and applause. Perhaps our camera 
tempted him, but our inclination was to kick the 
brute, rather than to perpetuate his pose, for the 
poor fish was still living. It had been caught in a 
net, so its captors informed us. On our own Florida 
and California coasts the tunas give rare sport with 
a rod and line. 

Like most people of a low order of intelligence 
the lower class native of Panama is without the 
slightest sense of humanity to dumb animals. He 
does not seem to be intentionally cruel — indeed he is 
too indolent to exert himself unless something is to 
be gained. But he never lets any consideration for 
the sufferings of an animal affect his method of 
treating it. The iguana, ugliest of lizards, which 
he eats with avidity, is one of his chief victims. 
This animal is usually taken alive by hunters in 
order that he may undergo a preliminary fattening 
process before being committed to the pot. In 
captivity his condition is not pleasant to contem- 
plate. Here at the market are eight or ten, living, 



278 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

palpitating, looking out on the strange world with 
eyes of wistful misery. Their short legs are roughly 
twisted so as to cross above their backs, and the 
sharp claws on one foot are thrust through the 
fleshy part of the other so as to hold them together 
without other fastening. A five-foot iguana is fully 
three feet tail, and of that caudal yard at least two 
feet of its tapering length is useless for food, so the 
native calmly chops it off with his machete, exposing 
the mutilated but living animal for sale. 

To our northern eyes there is probably no animal 
except a serpent more repulsive than the iguana. 
He is not only a lizard, but a peculiarly hideous 
one — ^horned, spined, mottled and warty like a toad. 
But loathsome as he is, the wanton, thoughtless 
tortures inflicted upon him by the marketmen invest 
him with the pathetic dignity which martyrs bear. 

Fish is apparently the great staple of the Panama 
market, as beseems a place which is practically an 
island and the very name of which signifies "many 
fishes". Yet at the time I was there the variety 
exposed for sale was not great. The corbina, ap- 
parently about as staple and certain a crop as our 
northern cod, the red snapper, mullet and a flat 
fish resembling our fresh-water sunfish, were all 
that were exhibited. There were a few West Indian 
lobsters too, about as large as our average-sized 
lobsters, but without claws, having antennae, per- 
haps 1 8 inches long, instead. Shrimps and small 



THE CITY OF PANAMA 279 

molluscs were plentifully displayed. As to meats 
the market was neither varied nor pleasing. If the 
assiduous attentions of flies produce any effect on 
raw meats prejudicial to human health, the Panama 
market offers rich field for some extension of the 
sanitary powers of Colonel Gorgas. 

In one notable respect this Panama market differs 
from most open-air affairs of the sort. The vendors 
make no personal effort to sell their goods. There 
is no appeal to passing buyers, no crying of wares, 
no "ballyhoo", to employ the language of Coney 
Island. What chatter there is is chiefly among the 
buyers; the sellers sit silent by their wares and are 
more apt to receive a prospective customer sulkily 
than with alert eagerness. Indeed the prevalent 
condition of the Panamanian, so far as observable 
on the streets, seems to be a chronic case of sulks. 
Doubtless amongst his own kind he can be a merry 
dog, but in the presence of the despised "gringo" 
his demeanor is one of apathy, or contemptuous 
indifference. Perhaps what he. was doing to the 
tuna and the iguana the day of our visit to the 
market was only what he would like to be doing 
to the northern invaders of his nondescript market 
place. 

If you view the subject fairly the Panamanian 
in the street is somewhat entitled to his view of the 
American invasion. Why should he be particularly 
pleased over the independence of Panama and the 



28o PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

digging of the Canal? He got none of the ten 
milHon dollars, or of the $250,000 annual payment. 
That went to his superiors who planned the "revolu- 
tion" and told him about it when it was all over. 
The influx of Americans brought him no particular 
prosperity, unless he drove a hack. They lived in 
Commission houses and bought all their goods in 
their own commissary. It was true they cleaned 
up his town, but he was used to the dirt and the 
fumes of fumigation made him sneeze. Doubtless 
there was no more yellow fever, but he was immune 
to that anywa}'". 

But way down in the bottom of his heart the 
real unexpressed reason for the dislike of the mass 
of Panamanians for our people is their resent- 
ment at our hardly concealed contempt for them. 
Toward the more prosperous Panamanian of social 
station this contempt is less manifested, and he 
accordingly shows less of the dislike for Americans 
that is too evident among the masses of the people. 
But as for the casual clerk or mechanic we Americans 
call him "spiggotty" with frank contempt for his 
undersize, his uneducation and above all for his 
large proportion of negro blood. And the lower 
class Panamanian smarting under the contemptu- 
ous epithet retorts by calling the North Ameri- 
cans "gringoes" and hating them with a deep, 
malevolent rancor that needs only a fit occasion 
to blaze forth in riot and in massacre. 



THE CITY OF PANAMA 281 

"Spiggotty", which has not yet found its way 
into the dictionaries, is derived from the salutation 
of hackmen seeking a fare — "speaka-da-EngHsh". 
Our fellow countrymen with a lofty and it must be 
admitted a rather provincial scorn for foreign peoples 
— for your average citizen of the United States 
thinks himself as superior to the rest of the world 
as the citizen of New York holds himself above the 
rest of the United States — are not careful to limit 
its application to Panamanians of the hackdriving 
class. From his lofty pinnacle of superiority he 
brands them all, from the market woman with a stock 
of half a dozen bananas and a handful of mangoes 
to the banker or the merchant whose children are 
being educated in Europe like their father, as "spig- 
gotties". Whereat they writhe and curse the 
Yankees. 

"Gringo" is in the dictionaries. It is applied 
to pure whites of whatever nation other than 
Spanish or Portuguese who happen to be sojourning 
in Spanish- American lands. The Century Dictionary 
rather inadequately defines it thus: "Among Spanish- 
Americans an Englishman or an Anglo-American; 
a term of contempt. Probably from Greico, a 
Greek". The dictionary derivation is not wholly 
satisfactory. Another one, based wholly on tradi- 
tion, is to the effect that during the war with Mexico 
our soldiers were much given to singing a song, 
"Green Grow the Rashes, O!" whence the term 



282 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

"Gringoes" applied by the Mexicans. The ety- 
mology of international slang can never be an exact 
science, but perhaps this will serve. 

Whatever the derivation, whatever the dictionary 
definitions, the two words "spiggotty" and "gringo" 
stand for racial antagonism, contempt and aversion 
on the part of the more northern people ; malice and 
suppressed wrath on that of the Spanish-Americans. 

You will find this feeling outcropping in every social 
plane in the Republic of Panama. It is, however, 
noticeably less prevalent among the more educated 
classes. Into the ten-mile-wide Canal Zone the Amer- 
icans have poured millions upon millions of money 
and will continue to do so for a long time to come. 
Some of this money necessarily finds its way into the 
hands of the Panamanians. The housing and com- 
missary system adopted by the Commission have 
deprived the merchants and landowners of Colon 
of their richest pickings, but nevertheless the amount 
of good American money that has fallen to their 
lot is a golden stream greater than that which 
flowed over the old Royal Road in its most crowded 
days. Few small towns will show so many auto- 
mobiles as Panama and they have all been bought 
since the American invasion. 

Nevertheless the Americans are hated. They are 
hated for the commissary system. The French took 
no such step to protect their workers from the 
rapacity of Panama and Colon shopkeepers, and 



THE CITY OF PANAMA 283 

they are still talking of the time of the French 
richness. They hate us because we cleaned their 
towns and are keeping them clean — not perhaps 
because they actually prefer the old filth and 
fatalities, but because their correction implies that 
they were not altogether perfect before we came. 
For the strongest quality of the Panamanian is his 
pride, and it is precisely that sentiment which we 
North Americans have either wantonly or necessarily 
outraged. 

Without pretension to intimate acquaintance with 
Panamanian home life I may state confidently that 
this attitude toward the Yankees is practically 
universal. The ordinary demeanor of the native 
when accosted is sulky, even insolent. The shop- 
keeper, unless he be a Chinese, as most of the better 
ones are, makes a sale as if he were indifferent to 
your patronage, and throws you the finished bundle 
as though he were tossing a bone to a dog. One 
Sunday morning, viewing the lottery drawing at the 
Archbishop's palace, I saw a well-dressed Pana- 
manian, apparently of the better class, roused to 
such wrath by a polite request that he remove his 
hat to give a lady a better view, that one might 
have thought the best blood of all Castile had been 
enraged by some deadly insult. 

This smoldering wrath is ever ready to break 
out; the brutal savagery which manifests itself in 
the recurrent revolutions of Spanish- America is ever 



284 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

present in Panama. On the Fourth of July, 1912, 
the Americans resident on the Zone held patriotic 
exercises at Ancon. After the speeches and the 
lunch a number of the United States marines 
wandered into the City of Panama and, after the 
unfortunate fashion of their kind, sought out that 
red-lighted district of infamy which the Panama 
authorities have thoughtfully segregated in a space 
between the public hospital and the cemeteries. 
The men were unarmed, but in uniform. Naturally 
their holiday began by visits to a number of Pana- 
manian gin mills where the liquid fuel for a fight 
was taken aboard. In due time the fight came. 
A Panama policeman intervened and was beaten 
for his pains. Other police came to his rescue. 
Somebody fired a shot and soon the police, running 
to their station, returned with magazine rifles and 
began pumping bullets into the unarmed marines. 
The latter for a time responded with stones, but 
the odds were too great and they broke and ran for 
the American territory of the Canal Zone. Mean- 
time of course the noise of the fusillade had alarmed 

I 

the American authorities. At Ancon, separated | 
from Panama City only by an imaginary boundary i 
line, the Zone police were mustered for service in \ 
case of need, and at Camp Otis, an hour away by j 
rail, the loth Infantry, U. S. A., was drawn up 
under arms, and trains made ready to bring the, 
troops to the riotous city at command. But the 



THE CITY OF PANAMA 285 

order never came, though the loth officers and men 
aHke were eager for it. It could come only through 
the American minister, and he was silent, believing 
that the occasion did not warrant the employment 
of the troops on the foreign soil of Panama. So the 
marines — or as many of them as their officers could 
gather up — were sent to their post, Camp Elliott, 
by train while those arrested by the Panamanians 
were taken to the Chiriqui Jail, or to the Panama 
hospitals. In jail the unarmed captives were beaten 
and torttu^ed after the fashion of the average Latin- 
American, when he has a foe helpless in his power. 
The day ended with three American marines killed 
and many woimded; the Americans, soldiers and 
civilians both, gritting their teeth and eager to take 
possession of Panama; and the Panamanians, noisy, 
insolent, boastful, bragging of how they had 
whipped the "Yankee pigs" and daring the whole 
United States to attempt any punishment. 

The United States seems to have supinely "taken 
the dare", as the boys would say, for though the 
affray and the murders occurred in July, 19 12, nothing 
has yet been done. In answer to a formal query in 
April, 191 3, the Department of State replied that 
the matter was "still the subject of diplomatic 
correspondence which it is hoped will have a satis- 
factory termination". 

Americans on the Zone are depressed over the 
seeming lack of vigor on the part of the home 



286 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

government. They say that the apparent immunity 
enjoyed by the assailants of the marines has only 
enhanced the contemptuous hatred of the natives 
for the Americans. "Let them step on our side of 
the line", says the swashbuckling native with a chip 
on his shoulder, "and we'll show 'em". Among the 
Americans on the Zone there is almost universal 
regret that the troops were not marched into Panama 
on the day of the riot. Authority existed under the 
treaty with the Republic of Panama. The troops 
were ready. The lesson need not have been a severe 
one, but it was deserved and would have been lasting. 
Furthermore those best equipped to judge say that 
the event is only deferred, not averted. "Spig- 
gotty" and "Gringo" will not continue long to 
make faces over an imaginary line without a clash. 
Despite the feeling against the Americans, all 
classes of Panamanians must admit receiving a 
certain amount of advantage from the activities of 
the Canal builders. Moreover the $10,000,000 paid 
over by the United States for the Canal Zone has 
not been squandered, nor has it been dissipated in 
graft. We are inclined to laugh because one of 
the first uses to which it was put was to build a 
government theater, which is opened scarce thirty 
days out of the year. But it is fair to take the 
Latin temperament into consideration. There is 
no Latin-American republic so impoverished as not 
to have a theater built by the public. The Re- 



THE CITY OF PANAMA 287 

public of Panama, created overnight, found itself 
without any public buildings whatsoever, barring 
the jail. Obviously a national capitol was the first 
need and it was speedily supplied. If one wing 
was used to house a theater that was a matter for 
local consideration and not one for cold-blooded 
Yankees to jeer about. The Republic itself was a 
little theatrical, rather reminiscent of the papier- 
m§,che creations of the stage carpenter, and might 
be expected to vanish like a transformation scene. 
At any rate with the money in hand the Panaman- 
ians built a very creditable government building, 
including a National Theater, and an imposing 
building for the National Institute as well. They 
might have done worse. It showed that the revolu- 
tion was more of a business affair than most Central- 
American enterprises of that sort. The average 
leader of so successful an enterprise would have con- 
cealed the greater part of the booty in a Paris bank 
account to his own order, and used the rest in building 
up an army for his own maintenance in power. 
Panama has her needed public buildings — let us 
wink at the theater — and $7,500,000 invested in 
New York against a time of need. 

The three government buildings in the City of 
Panama are all creditable architecturally, and from 
a superficial standpoint structurally as well. When- 
ever you are shown a piece of government work in 
a Latin-American country your guide always 



288 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

whispers "graft" — as for that matter it is the 
practice in New York as well. But Panama seems 
to have received the worth of its money. The 
Government Palace, which corresponds to our na- 
tional capitol, stands facing a little plaza open 
toward the sea. It is nearly square, iSo by 150 
feet, surrounding a tasteful court or patio after the 
South American manner. Built of rubble masonry 
it is faced with white cement, and is of a singularly 
simple and effective architectural style for a Latin- 
American edifice. The building houses the As- 
sembly Hall, the Government Theater and the 
public offices. The interior of the theater, which 
seats about 1000, is rather in the European than 
the North American style with a full tier of boxes, 
large foyers decorated with paintings by Panama 
artists, and all the appurtenances of a well-appointed 
opera house. 

Next to the Government Palace the most am- 
bitious public building in Panama is the home of 
the National Institute, or University, which nestles 
at the foot of Ancon Hill. This is a group of seven 
buildings surrounding a central court. The Insti- 
tute is designed in time to become a true university, 
but its accommodations are at present far in advance 
of its needs. Equipped with an excellent faculty 
it will for some time to come — it was opened only 
in 191 1 — suffer from a lack of pupils, because the 
public schools in the Republic are not yet fitted to 



THE CITY OF PANAMA 289 

equip pupils for a university course. The popula- 
tion of Panama is largely illiterate. The census in 
191 1 showed 60,491 children of school age, and only 
18,607 enrolled in schools of all classes. Of those 
more than 16,000 were enrolled in the primary 
schools. The Government however is doing all it 
can to encourage education among the masses, and 
the National Institute will offer to all who fit them- 
selves to enter its classes not only free tuition, but 
free board and lodging as well. 

The third considerable public building in Panama 
is the Mimicipal Building which stands at one comer 
of the Cathedral Plaza. It contains, besides the 
council chamber and usual offices, the Columbus 
Library of about 2500 books, including many rare 
volumes on the ancient history of the Isthmian land 
and its people. 

To return however to the physical aspects of the 
City of Panama. It is recorded of a certain King 
of Spain that when divers bills for the fortification 
of Panama City were presented to him he gazed 
into vacancy with the rapt eyes of one seeing visions. 

"Methinks I behold those walls from here", 
quoth he to the suppliant treasurer, "they must be 
so prodigious"! 

Indeed what remains of the walls of Panama is 
impressive to American eyes that, accustomed to 
the peace and newness of our own towns, always 
rejoice in seeing the relics of the time when every 



290 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

city was a walled camp. Ruins and the remnants 
of by-gone days of battle are now and will become 
increasingly objects of human interest. For in the 
centuries to come our present edifices of iron 
sheathed with slabs of stone or brick will disintegrate 
into rust and clay, while as for the scenes of our most 
glorious battles they remain even today as barely 
discernible lines of earthworks. Gone is the day 
of turreted castles, frowning walls, bastions, ravelins 
and donjon keeps. 

It is little wonder that even the renmants of 
Panama's wall are impressive. The new city was 
decreed by the Queen of Spain in 1672, or about 
a year after Morgan had despoiled and destroyed 
Old Panama. The site was chosen largely because 
of the opportunity it afforded for defense, and the 
good Bishop had scarcely selected the site for the 
Cathedral when the military officials began staking 
out the line of the walls. Though almost 250 years 
have since passed a great part of these fortifications 
is still intact, and the plan of the whole is still 
easily traceable amid the narrow streets of the 
crowded little city. Most notable of the sections 
still standing is the sea wall, sometimes called Las 
Bovedas, from which on the one hand one looks 
down on the inmates of the flowery little Chiriqui 
Prison, and on the other out to sea — past the shallow 
harbor with its army of pelicans, past the tossing 
little native fishing and market boats, past the long 



THE CITY OF PANAMA 291 

Balboa fill where the Canal builders have thrown 
a mountain into the sea and made a vast plain, 
and so on to the three little islands, rising craggy 
from the ocean, where the Great Republic of the 
North is mounting the cannon that shall guard the 
entrance of the Canal from any invader. Very 
different from the old Spanish fort of the 17th 
century are these military works of the 20th and 
not nearly so picturesque. Such as they are must 
be left to the imagination, for the military authorities 
rigidly bar the camera from the post. 

The original city stood on a peninsula, and three 
sides of this were bounded by the sea wall, rising 
from about high water mark to a height of from 
twenty to thirty feet. About half way between 
the present plazas of the Cathedral and Santa Ana 
the wall turned inward with a great frowning bastion 
at each corner and crossed the Isthmus. A moat 
was dug on its landward side, shutting off all com- 
munication with the mainland save over the draw- 
bridge and through the sally-port on the line of 
the Avenida Centrale. With drawbridge up and 
sally-port closed the old town was effectually shut 
off from attack by land, while its guns on the land- 
ward wall effectually commanded the broad plain 
on which now stands the upper part of the town, and 
the declivities of Ancon Hill where now are the 
buildings of the Zone hospital and the Tivoli Hotel. 

A good bit of construction and of military eii- 



292 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

gineering was the wall of Panama — our own engineers 
on the Canal have done no better. Round the corner 
from La Mercedes Church a salient bastion crops 
out among fragile frame tenements and jerry-built 
structures. The angle is as sharp as though the 
storms of two and a half centuries had not broken 
over it. Climb it and you will find the top level, 
grassy, and broad enough for a tennis coiu"t full 
thirty feet above the level of the town. The con- 
struction was not unlike that of the center walls 
of the locks designed by the best American engineers. 
Two parallel walls of masonry were built, about 
forty to fifty feet apart and the space between filled 
in with dirt, packed solidly. On this part of the 
wall were no bomb proofs, chambers or dungeons. 
The guns were mounted en barbette, on the very 
top of the wall and discharged through embrasures 
In the parapet. Rather let it be said that they were 
to have been fired, for the new Panama was built 
after the plague of the pirates had passed and the 
bane of the buccaneers was abated. No foe ever 
assaulted the city from its landward side. In the 
frequent revolutions the contending parties were 
already within the town and did their fighting in 
its streets, the old walls serving no more useful 
purpose than the ropes which define a prize ring. 
Only the sea-wall has heard the thunder of cannon 
in deadly conjflict. There during the brief revolu- 
tion which gave the United States the whip hand in 




VIEWS OF THE CITY MARKET, PANAMA 




THE 1<"LAT AUTH IN (.HI Ucll OF SAN DOMINGO. 
2. SANTA ANA PLAZA, PANAMA 



THE CITY OF PANAMA 293 

Panama a Colombian gunboat did indeed make a 
pretense of shelling the city, but was driven away 
by machine guns mounted on the wall. 

Within the walls, or the portion of the town the 
walls once surrounded, live the older families of 
native Panamanians, or those of foreign birth who 
have lived so long upon the Isthmus as to become 
identified with its life. The edifices along the streets 
are more substantial, the shops more dignified than 
in the newer quarter without. There are few, if 
any, frame structures and these evidently patched 
in where some fire has swept away more substantial 
predecessors. This part of Panama is reminiscent 
of many small towns of Spain or Portugal. The 
galleries nod at each other across streets too narrow 
to admit the burning sun, or to permit the passage 
of more than one vehicle at a time. The older 
churches, or their ruins, diversify the city streets, 
and the Cathedral Plaza in the very center with 
the great open cafe of the historic Hotel Centrale 
at one side has a distinctly foreign flavor. Here as 
one sits in the open listening to the native band and 
sipping a drink — softer, if one be wise than that 
the natives thrive upon — and watches the native 
girls of every shade and in gayest dress driving or 
loitering past, one feels far from the bustling North 
American world, far from that snap and ginger and 
hustle on which Americans pride themselves. And 
then perhaps the music is suddenly punctuated by 



294 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

heavy diill "booms", like a distant cannonade and 
one knows that only a few miles away dynamite is 
rending rock and man is grappling fiercely with nature. 

Carnival occupies the four days preceding Ash 
Wednesday, the period known in all Catholic 
countries as the Mardi Gras. For years its gaiety 
has been preceded by a vigorous political contest for 
the high honor of being Queen of the Carnival, 
though it is said that in later years this rivalry has 
been less determined than of yore. At one time, 
however, it was contended for as strenuously as 
though the presidency of the republic was at stake 
and the two political parties — ^liberal and conserva- 
tive — made it as much a stake of political activity 
as though the destiny of the State was involved. 
Happy the young woman who had a father able 
and willing to foot the bills, for no corrupt practices 
act intervened to save candidates from the wiles of 
the campaign grafter, or to guard the integrity of 
the voter from the insidious temptations of the 
man with a barrel. 

It would be chivalric to say that the one issue in 
the campaign is the beauty of the respective candi- 
dates, but alas for a mercenary age! The sordid 
spirit of commercialism has crept in and the Pana- 
manian papa must look upon the ambitions of his 
beauteous daughter as almost as expensive as a 
six-cylinder automobile, a trip to Europe, or a 
yearning for a titled husband. But sometimes there 



THE CITY OF PANAMA 295 

are compensations. It Is whispered that for one in 
retail trade in a large way it is no bad advertisement 
to have a Carnival Queen for a daughter. 

We have tried carnivals in various of our more 
cold-blooded American cities, but we cannot get the 
spirit. Our floats are more artistic and expensive, 
our decorations are more lavish, but we sit and view 
the parade with detached calmness as though the 
revelers were hired clowns. In Panama everybody 
joins in the sport. The line of carriages around the 
park in the Plaza Centrale, thence by the Avenida 
to the Plaza Santa Ana and back is unbroken. 
The confetti falls like a January snow and the 
streets are ankle deep. Everyone is in mask and 
you never can tell whether the languishing eyes 
peering out upon you are set in a face of pearl or 
of ebony. The noise of innumerable horns and rattles 
rises to Heaven and reverberates in the narrow streets, 
while the bells jangle out of tune, as is their custom. 
Oh, those bells of Panama! Never were so many 
peals and chimes out of harmony. Stedman, who 
heard them only in an ordinary moment, not in 
their Mardi Gras madness, put them to verse thus: 

" Loudly the cracked bells overhead 

Of San Francisco Ding 
With Santa Ana, La Merced, 

Felipe answering. 
Banged all at once, and four times four 
Mom, noon and night the more and more, 
Clatter and clang with huge uproar, 

The bells of Panama ". 



296 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

Senoritas of sundry shades look down sweetly 
from the balconies, and shower confetti on gallant 
caballeros who stalk along as giant chanticleers, 
or strive to entangle in parti-colored tapes the lances 
of a gay party of toreadors. At night some of the 
women enmesh giant fireflies in their raven locks 
with flashing effect. King License rules supreme 
and some of the horseplay even in the brightly 
lighted cafes of the Centrale and Metropolitan rather 
transcends the limits of coldly descriptive prose. 
The natives will tell you that the Cathedral Plaza 
is the center of propriety; the Plaza Santa Ana a 
trifle risqu6. After observation and a return at 
daybreak from the carnival balls held at the Cen- 
trale and Metropolitan Hotels you can meditate 
at your leisure upon the precise significance of the 
word propriety in Panama at Mardi Gras. 

The clause in the treaty which grants to the 
United States authority to maintain order in the 
Republic might very readily be stretched to include 
police power over Panama. This has not been done 
however and the city has its own police force, an 
exceedingly numerous one for a town of its size. 
Undoubtedly, however, diplomatic representations 
from the United States have caused the Panamanians 
to put their police regulations somewhat in accord 
with North American ideas. There are no more 
bull fights — "We never had very good bull-fights 
anyway", said a Panama gentleman plaintively 



THE CITY OF PANAMA 297 

acquiescing in this reform. Cock-fights however 
flourish and form, with the lottery drawing, the 
chief Simday diversion. A pretty dismal spectacle 
it is too with two attenuated birds, often covered 
with blood and half sightless striking fiercely at 
each other with long steel spurs, while a crowd of 
a hundred or so, blacks and whites, indiscriminately 
yell encouragement and shriek for bets from the 
surrounding arena. The betting in fact is the real 
support of the game. The Jamaicans particiilarly 
have their favorite cocks and will wager a week's 
pay on their favorites and all of their wives' laundry 
earnings they can lay hands upon as well. One or 
two gamecocks tethered by the leg are as common 
a sight about a Jamaican's hut as "houn' dawgs" 
around a Missouri cabin. 

If there is any regulation of the liquor traffic in 
Panama, it is not apparent to the casual observer. 
Nowhere does one see so much drinking, and no- 
where that people drink at all is there less drunken- 
ness. It is a curious fact that these two phenomena 
— wide open drinking places and little drunkenness — 
are often found together. In Panama the saloons 
are legion, and I regret to say the biggest of them 
are run by Americans. No screens obstruct a full 
view of the interiors, and hardened tipplers flaunt 
their vice in the faces of all beholders. Perhaps 
the very publicity impels them to quit before they 
are hopelessly befuddled. Possibly the moist and 



298 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

somewhat debilitating climate permits the innocuous 
use of stimulants to a greater extent than would 
be possible in the North. Besides the absence of 
any scandalous open drunkenness there seems to 
be some significance in the fact that the records 
of the Zone hospitals show a surprisingly small 
number of deaths from diseases induced by chronic 
alcoholism. But the casual observer strolling on 
Avenida Centrale, or along the streets tributary 
to it, might be excused for thinking Panama one 
great grog shop. It is curious, too, that despite 
the Latin character of the populace the taste for 
light wines, in which some see the hope of national 
temperance, does not seem general. Whisky, brandy 
and rum are the regular tipples. On a still re- 
membered night in Panama, before the American 
invasion, the Centrale Hotel bar was made free to 
all. No drinks were served to the thirsty, but to 
all who appeared a bottle was given and the line 
marched past for some hours. Yet, even at that, 
there was no considerable drunkenness observed. 
Apparently for the Panamanians drink is not a 
hopeless evil, but to the soldiers and marines of 
the United States stationed on the Isthmus and 
denied the rational social life of a well-regulated 
canteen the open doors of the saloons of Panama 
are as the open doors to a hotter spot. Their more i 
strenuous temperaments will not stand the stimulant i 
which leaves a Panamanian as stolid as before. , 



THE CITY OF PANAMA 299 

The fatal riot of July 4, 19 12, is one illustration of 
what Panama saloon hospitality may do with the 
men who wear the khaki. 

Shopping in Panama is a decidedly cosmopolitan 
enterprise. The shopkeeper of whom I bought a 
Panama hat, made in Ecuador, did business under 
a Spanish name, was in fact a Genoese and when 
he found I could speak neither Spanish nor Italian 
coaxed me up to his price in French. Most of the 
retail prices are of so elastic a sort that when you 
have beaten them down two-thirds you retire with 
your package perfectly confident that they would 
have stood another cut. Nevertheless the Chinese 
merchants who are the chief retail dealers in 
the tropics compel respect. They live cleanly, 
are capable business men, show none of the sloth 
and indifference of the natives, and seem to prosper 
everywhere. The Chinese m^arket gardens in the 
outskirts of Panama are a positive relief for the 
neatness of their trim rows of timely plants. The 
Panamanian eats yams and grumbles that the soil 
will grow nothing else; the Chinaman makes it 
produce practically all the vegetables that grow in 
our northern gardens. 

Avenida Centrale ends its arterial course at the 
sea wall of the city, or at least at that part of the 
sea wall which is the best preserved and retains 
most of its old-time dignity. It is here something 
like the Battery at Charleston, S. C, though the 



300 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

houses fringing it are not of a like stateliness, and 
the aristocracy of the quarter is somewhat tempered 
by the fact that here, too, is the city prison. Into 
the courtyard of this calaboose you can gaze from 
pigmy sentry boxes, the little sentries in which 
seem ever ready to step out to let the tourist step 
in and afterward pose for his camera, with rifle, 
fixed bayonet, and an even more fixed expression. 
The greater part of one of the prison yards is given 
over to flower beds, and though sunken some twenty 
feet or more below the crest of the wall, is thought- 
fully provided with such half-way stations in the 
way of lean-to sheds, ladders and water butts that 
there seems to be no reason why any prisoner should 
stay in who wants to get out. But perhaps they 
don't often yearn for liberty. A wire fence cuts 
off the woman's section of the jail and the several 
native women I observed flirting assiduously with 
desperate male malefactors from whom they were 
separated only by this fence, seemed content with 
their lot, and evidently helped to cultivate like 
resignation in the breasts of their dark adorers. 
A white-clad guard, machete at side and heavy 
pistol at belt, walked among them jingling a heavy 
bunch of keys authoritatively but offering no inter- 
ruption to their tender interludes. 

On the other side of the row of frame quarters 
by which the prison yard is bisected you can see 
at the normal hours the prisoners taking their 



THE CITY OF PANAMA 301 

meals at a long table in the open air. Over the 
parapet of the sea wall above, an equally long row 
of tourists is generally leveling cameras, and some- 
times exchanging lively badinage with some criminal 
who objects to figuring in this amateur rogues' gallery. 
To the casual spectator it all savors of opera bouffe, 
but there are stories a-plenty that the Panama jail 
has had its share of brutal cruelty as have most 
places wherein men are locked away from sight and 
subjected to the whims of others not so very much 
their superiors. Once the Chiriqui Prison was 
a fortress, the bank of quarters for the prisoners 
formed the barracks, and the deep archways under 
the sea wall were dungeons oft populated by political 
prisoners. Miasma, damp and the brutality of 
jailers have many a time brought to occupants of 
those dungeons their final discharge, and a patch 
of wall near by, with the bricks significantly chipped, 
is pointed out as the place where others have been 
from time to time stood up in front of a firing squad 
at too short a range for misses. The Latin- American 
lust for blood has had its manifestations in Panama, 
and the old prison has doubtless housed its share 
of martyrs. 

But one thinks little of the grimmer history of 
the Chiriqui Prison, looking down upon the bright 
flower beds, and the gay quadroon girls flirting with 
some desperate character who is perhaps "in" for 
a too liberal indulgence in rum last pay day. Indeed 



302 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

the guard wards off more sanguinary reminiscences 
by telling you that they used to hold bull baitings — 
a milder form of bull-fight — in the yard that the 
captives in the dungeons might witness the sport, 
and perhaps envy the bull, quien sahe? 

The present town of Panama does not impress one 
with the air of being the scene of dark crimes, 
of covetousness, lust and hate. Its police system, 
viewed superficially, is effective and most of the 
malefactors in the Chiriqui Jail are there for trivial 
offenses only. One crime of a few years ago however 
bids fair to become historic. One of the banks in 
the town was well known to be the repository of 
the fimds needed for the payroll of the Canal force. 
It was the policy of the Commission to pay off as 
much as possible in gold and silver, and to a very 
great extent in coins of comparatively small de- 
nomination in order to keep it on the Zone. The 
money paid out on pay drafts comes swiftly back 
through the Commissary to the banks which ac- 
cordingly accumulate a very considerable stock of 
ready cash as a subsequent pay day approaches. 
Now the banks of Panama do not seem to even the 
casual observer as strongholds, and probably to the 
professional cracksman they are positive invitations 
to enterprise. Accordingly three men, only one of 
whom had any criminal record or was in any sense 
an habitue of the underworld, set about breaking 
into one of the principal banks. They laid their 



THE CITY OF PANAMA 303 

plans with deliberation and conducted their opera- 
tions with due regard for their personal comfort. 
Their plan was to tunnel into the bank from an 
adjoining building, in which they set up a bogus 
contracting business to account for the odds and 
ends of machinery and implements they had about. 
The tunnel being dark they strung electric lights in 
it. Being hot, tmder that tropic air, they installed 
electric fans. All the comforts of a burglar's home 
were there. 

From a strictly professional standpoint they made 
not a single blunder. Their one error — almost a 
fatal one — was in not being good churchmen. For 
they had planned to enter the bank late on a Satur- 
day night. Tuesday was to be pay day and on 
Monday the full amount of the payroll would be 
drawn out. But Saturday night it would all be there 
• — several hundred thousand dollars — and they would 
have all day Sunday to pack it sectu^ely and make 
their getaway. Midnight, then, saw them creeping 
into the bank. The safe yielded readily to their 
assaults, but it disgorged only a beggarly $30,000 
or so. What could be the trouble? Just then the 
knowledge dawned on the disappointed bandits 
that Monday was a Saint's day, the bank would be 
closed, therefore the prudent Zone paymaster had 
drawn his funds on Satiurday. The joke was on the 
cracksmen. 

With the comparatively few thousands they ha!,4 



304 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

accumulated the disappointed outlaws took a motor 
boat and made for Colombia. Had they secured 
the loot they expected they would have been made 
welcome there, for Colombia does not recognize her 
run-away child Panama, and no extradition treaty 
could have been appealed to by the Panamanians 
against their despoilers. As it was they quarreled 
over the booty. One of the three was killed; the 
other two were arrested for the murder, but soon 
went free. Their complete immunity from prosecu- 
tion calls attention to the fact that a few hours* 
trip in a motor boat will take any one guilty of 
crime in Panama to a land where he will be wholly 
free from punishment. 

Chtirches in Panama, or the ruins of them, are 
many, and while not beautiful are interesting. 
Everybody goes to see the famous flat arch of the 
San Domingo Church, and its disappearance will be 
a sore blow to guides and post-card dealers. Aside 
from its curious architectiu-al quality the arch 
derives interest from a legend of its construction 
by a pious monk. Twice it fell before the mortar 
had time to set. The third time its designer brought 
a stool and sat himself down below the heavy key- 
stone. "If it falls", he said, "I go with it". But 
that time the arch stood firm, and it has withstood 
the assaults of centuries to come at last to the 
ignoble end of incorporation in a tenement house. 
The arch, which certainly looks unstable, is often 



THE CITY OF PANAMA 305 

pointed to as an evidence of the slight peril on the 
Isthmus from earthquake shocks. Such convulsions 
of nature are indeed not unknown but are usually 
feeble. That great shock that overthrew San Fran- 
cisco was not even registered by the seismograph 
on the Canal Zone. 

A systematic tour of the churches of Panama is 
well worth the visitor's time. More that is curious 
will be found than there is of the beautiful, and to 
the former class I am inclined to consign a much 
begrimed painting in the Cathedral which tradition 
declares to be a Murillo. Perhaps more interesting 
than the Cathedral is the Church of San Francisco, 
in the Plaza Bolivar. The present structure dates 
back only to 1785, two former edifices on the same 
site having been burned. The ruins of the beauti- 
ful cloister of the Franciscan convent adjoin it, but 
are concealed from view by an unsightly board fence 
which the tourist, not having a guide, will not think 
of passing through. The ruins however are well 
worth seeing. 

The Cathedral Plaza is socially the center of 
town, though geographically the old French Plaza 
of Santa Ana is more near the center. Directly 
opposite the Cathedral is the Hotel Centrale, built 
after the Spanish fashion, with four stories around 
a central court. In the blither days of the French 
regime this court was the scene of a revelry to 
which the daily death roll formed a grim contrast. 



306 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

However the occasional gaiety of the Patio Centrale 
did not end with the French. Even in the prosaic 
Yankee days of the last carnival the intervention 
of the police was necessary to prevent a gentleman 
from being wholly denuded, and displayed to the 
revelers in nature's garb as a specimen of the 
superior products of Panama. 

The night life of the streets is as a rule placid, 
however, rather than boisterous, nor is Panama an 
"all night town". The rule of the tropics is "early 
to rise" in any event and as a result those parts of 
the city which the visitor sees usually quiet down 
by midnight and presently thereafter the regions 
about the Cathedral Plaza are as quiet and somno- 
lent as Wall Street after dark. But in a more 
sequestered section of the town, where the public 
hospitals looks down significantly on the spectacle 
from one side, and the cemeteries show sinister on 
the other, revelry goes on apace until the cool 
dawn arises. There the clatter of pianolas which 
have felt the climate sorely mingles with the clink 
of glasses in cantinas that never close, and the 
laughter of lips to which, in public at least, laughter 
is a professional necessity. Under the red lights at 
midnight Panama shows its worst. Men of varied 
voyages, familiar with the slums of Singapore and 
the purlieus of Paris, declare that this little city 
of a hybrid civilization outdoes them in all that 
makes up the fevered life of the underworld. Scarcely 



THE CITY OF PANAMA 307 

a minute's walk away is the American town, quiet 
and restful under the tropic moon, its winding streets 
well guarded by the Zone police, its houses wrapped 
in vines and fragrant with flowers all dark in the 
hours of repose. But in the congested tangle of 
concrete houses between the hospitals and the 
cemetery madness and mirth reign, brains reel with 
the fumes of the strange drinks of the tropics, and 
life is worth a passing pleasure — nothing more. Men 
of many lands have cursed the Chagres fever and the 
jungle's ills, but the pest place of Panama has been 
subjected to no purging process with all the efforts 
of the United States to banish evil from the Isthmus. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE SANITATION OF THE ZONE 

THE seal of the Canal Zone shows a galleon 
under full sail passing between the towering 
banks of the Culebra Cut, with the motto, 
"The land divided; the world united". Sometimes 
as I trudged about the streets of Colon or Panama, 
or over the hills and through the jungle in the Zone, 
I have thought a more significant coat-of-arms 
might be made up of a garbage can rampant and 
a gigantic mosquito mordant — for verily by the 
collection and careful covering of filth and the 
slaughter of the pestilential mosquito all the work 
done on the Zone has been made possible. As for 
the motto how would this do — "A clean country 
and a salubrious strait"? 

It is the universal opinion of those familiar with 
the Canal work that if we had approached the task 
with the lack of sanitary knowledge from which 
the French suffered we should have failed as they 
did. No evil known to man inspires such dread as 
yellow fever. Leprosy, in the individual, does, 
indeed, although well-informed people know that 
it is not readily communicated and never becomes 
epidemic. Cholera did strike the heart of man with 

308 




I. ENTRANCE TO MT. HOPE CEMETERY, COLON. 2. TOMBS IN NATIVE 
CEMETERY, PANAMA. 3. COMMISSION CEMETERY, ANCON HILL 




I. FRENCH HOSPITAL AT COLON, STILL IN USE. 2. FUMIGATION 
BRIGADE, PANAMA 



THE SANITATION OF THE ZONE 309 

cold dread, but more than one generation has passed 
since cholera was an evil to be reckoned with in 
civilized countries. Yellow fever is now to be classed 
with it as an epidemic disease, the spread of which 
can be absolutely and unerringly controlled. 

The demonstrated fact that yellow fever is 
transmitted only by the bite of a stegomyia mosquito 
which has already bitten, and been infected by, a 
human being sick of the fever has become one of 
the commonplaces of sanitary science. 

In 1904 Col. W. C. Gorgas, an army surgeon 
familiar with the work of combatting yellow fever 
and malaria by the elimination of the mosquitoes, 
by which the infection is conveyed, was appointed 
Chief Sanitary Officer of the Zone. In 1908 he 
was appointed a member of the commission and is 
the oldest member of that body in point of service. 
Arriving on the Zone he at once attacked infection 
in every part of the Canal Zone, particular atten- 
tion being given to the cities of Panama and Colon. 
In these cities the visitor will be impressed with 
the comparative cleanliness of the streets and side- 
walks and the covering of all garbage receptacles. 
No other Central American city shows so cleanly 
a front. Screening, however, is little in evidence. 
How great the mortality had been under the French 
it is impossible to tell. Their statistics related al- 
most wholly to deaths in their hospitals and very 
largely to white patients. Men who died out on 



310 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

the line, natives who worked a day or two and went 
back to their villages to die were left unrecorded. 
In the hospitals it was recorded that between i88l 
and 1889, 5618 employees died. The contractors 
were charged a dollar a day for every man sent to 
the hospitals, so it may be conjectured that not all 
were sent who should have been. Col. Gorgas 
estimates the average death rate at about 240 per 
1000 annually. The American general death rate 
began with a maximum of 49.94 per 1000 sinking 
to 21.18, at or about which point it has remained 
for several years. Among employees alone our 
death rate was 7.50 per 1000. The French with 
an average force of 10,200 men employed lost in 
nine years 22,189 men. We with an average force 
of 33,000 lost less than 4000 in about an equal 
period. 

When Col. Gorgas came to the Isthmus the two 
towns Panama and Colon were well fitted to be 
breeding places for pestilence. Neither had sewers 
nor any drainage system. The streets of Panama 
were paved after a fashion with cobblestones and 
lined with gutters through which the liquid refuse 
of the town trickled slowly or stood still to fester 
and grow putrescent under the glowing rays of the 
tropic sun. Colon had no pavement whatsoever. 
Neither town had waterworks and the people 
gathered and stored rainwater in cisterns and 
pottery jars which afforded fine breeding places for 



THE SANITATION OF THE ZONE 311 

the mosquito. As a matter of fact the whole 
Isthmus, not the towns alone, furnishes plenty of 
homes for the mosquito. With a rainy season 
lasting throughout eight months in the year much 
of the soil is waterlogged. The stagnant back 
waters of small streams; pools left by the rains; 
the footprints of cows and other animals filled up 
with rainwater quickly breed the wrigglers that 
ultimately become mosquitoes. 

The fight then against disease on the Isthmus 
resolved itself largely into a war of extermination 
upon the two noxious varieties of mosquitoes. It 
involved fiirst a cleaning up, paving and draining 
of the two towns. Curiously enough bad smells are 
not necessarily unhygienic, but they betoken the 
existence of matter that breeds disease germs, and 
flies and other insects distribute those germs where 
they will do the most harm. Colon and Panama 
therefore were paved and provided with sewage 
systems, while somewhat stringent ordinances 
checked the pleasant Panama practice of 
emptying all slops from the front gallery into 
the street. 

The first thing to do with the towns was to 
fumigate them. The Panamanians did not like 
this. Neither would we or any other people for 
that matter, for the process of fumigating necessarily 
interrupts the routine of life, invades domestic 
privacy, inevitably causes some loss by the dis- 



312 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

coloring of fabrics, interrupts trade in the case of 
stores and is in general an infernal nuisance. 

Here the peculiar personality of Col. Gorgas came 
into play. Had that gentleman not been a great 
health officer he would have made a notable diplo- 
mat, particularly in these new days when tact and 
charm of manner are considered more essential to 
an American diplomat than dollars. He went 
among the people of the two towns, argued, jollied 
and cajoled them until a work which it was thought 
might have to be accomplished at the point of the 
bayonet was finished with but little friction. The 
bayonet was always in the background however, for 
the treaty gives the United States unqualified 
authority to enforce its sanitary ordinances in the 
cities of Colon and Panama. 

On the subject of the extermination of mosqui- 
toes the native is always humorous. He will describe 
to you Col. Gorgas' s trained bloodhounds and Old 
Sleuths tracking the criminal stegomyia to his lair; 
the corps of bearers of machetes and chloroform 
who follow to put an end to the malevolent mos- 
quito's days; the scientist with the high-powered 
microscope who examines the remains and, if he 
finds the deceased carried germs, the wide search 
made for individuals whom he may have bitten that 
they may be segregated and put under proper 
treatment. 

In reality there is a certain humor in this scientific 



THE SANITATION OF THE ZONE 313 

bug hunting. You are at afternoon tea with a 
hostess in one of the charming tropical houses which 
the Commission suppHes to its workers. The eyes 
of your hostess suddenly become fixed in a terrified 
gaze. 

"Goodness gracious "! she exclaims, "look there"! 

"What? where"? you cry, bounding from your 
seat in excitement. Perhaps a blast has just 
boomed on the circumambient air and you have 
visions of a fifty-pound rock about to fly through 
the drawing-room window. Life on the Zone 
abounds in such incidents. 

"There"! dramatically. "That mosquito"! 

"I'll swat it", you cry valorously, remembering 
the slogan of "Swat the Fly" which breaks forth 
recurrently in our newspapers every spring, though 
they are quite calm and unperturbed about the places 
which breed flies faster than they can be swatted. 

"Goodness, no. I must telephone the depart- 
ment". 

Speechless with amazement you wonder if the 
police or fire department is to be called out to cope 
with this mosquito. In due time there appears an 
official equipped with an electric flash-light, a 
phial and a small bottle of chloroform. The male- 
factor — no, the suspect, for the anopheles malefactor 
does no evil despite his sinister name — is mercifully 
chloroformed and deposited in the phial for a later 
postmortem. With his flash-light the inspector 



314 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

examines all the dark places of the house to seek 
for possible accomplices, and having learned that 
nobody has been bitten takes himself off. 

It does seem a ridiculous amount of fuss about 
a mosquito, doesn't it? But since that sort of thing 
has been done on the Zone death-carts no longer 
make their dismal rounds for the night's quota of 
the dead, and the ravages of malaria are no longer 
so general or so deadly as they were. 

Nowadays there are no cases of yellow fever 
developing on the Zone, but in the earlier days 
when one did occur the sanitary officials set out to 
find the cause of infection. When the French seek 
to detect a criminal they follow the maxim " Cherchez 
la femme" (Look for the woman). When pursuing 
the yellow-fever germ to its source the Panama 
inspectors look for the stegomyia mosquito that bit 
the victim — which is a little reminiscent of himting 
for a needle in a haystack. 

A drunken man picked up on the street in Panama 
was taken to the hospital and there died of yellow 
fever. He was a stranger but his hotel was looked 
up and proved to be a native house occupied only 
by immunes, so that he could not have been infected 
there. Nobody seemed to care particularly about 
the deceased, who was buried as speedily as possible, 
but the Sanitary Department did care about the 
source of his malady. Looking up his haunts it 
was discovered that he was much seen in company 



THE SANITATION OF THE ZONE 315! 

with an Italian. Thereupon all the Italians in town' 
were interrogated; one declared he had seen the! 
dead man in company with the man who tended! 
bar at the theater. This worthy citizen was sought' 
out and was discovered hiding away in a secluded) 
lodging sick with yellow fever. Whereupon the* 
theater was promptly fumigated as the center of 
infection. 

Clearing up and keeping clean the two centersi 
of population was, however, the least of the work' 
of sanitation. The whole Isthmus was a breeding- 
place for the mosquitoes. Obviously every foot of 
it could not be drained clear of pools and rivulets,' 
but the preventive campaign of the sanitation men' 
covered scores of square miles adjacent to villages) 
and the Canal bed, and was marvelously effective] 
in reducing the number of mosquitoes. Away fromi 
the towns the campaign was chiefly against thel 
malarial mosquito — the anophelincB. The yellow-1 
fever mosquito, the stegomyia, is a town-bred insect' 
coming from cisterns, water pitchers, tin cans, 
fountains in the parks, water-filled pans used to, 
keep ants from the legs of furniture and the like. 
It is even said to breed in the holy-water fonts of' 
the multitudinous churches of Panama, and thej 
sanitary officials secured the cooperation of the 
church authorities in having those receptacles kept| 
fresh. The malarial mosquito however breeds in 
streams, marshes and pools and will travel sometimes! 



3i6 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

a mile and a half from his birth-place looking for 
trouble. 

As you ride in a train across the Isthmus you 
will often see far from any human habitation a 
blackened barrel on a board crossing some little 
brook a few inches wide. If you have time to look 
carefully you will see that the edges of the gully 
through which the brook runs have been swept 
clear of grass by scythe or fire or both, and that 
the banks of the rivulet are blackened as though 
by a tar-brush while the water itself is covered 
by a black and greasy film. 

This is one of the outposts of the army of health. 
Of them there are several hundred, perhaps 
thousands, scattered through the Zone. The barrel 
is filled with a certain fluid combination of oil and 
divers chemicals called larvacide. Day and night 
with monotonous regularity it falls drop by drop 
into the rivulet, spreads over its surface and is 
deposited on the pebbles on the banks. The mos- 
quito larvae below must come to the surface to 
breathe. There they meet with the noxious fluid 
and at the first breath are slain. Automatically 
this one barrel makes that stream a charnel house 
for mosquito larvae. But up and down throughout 
the land go men with cans of the oil on their backs 
and sprinklers in their hands seeking for pools and 
stagnant puddles which they spray with the larva- 
cide. So between the war on the larva at its breed- 



THE SANITATION OF THE ZONE 317 

ing point and the system of screening oE all resi- 
dences, offices and eating places the malarial infec- 
tion has been greatly reduced. It has not been 
eradicated by any manner of means. The Panama 
cocktail (quinine) is still served with meals. In one 
year 2307.66 pounds of the drug were served out. 
But if not wholly obliterated the ailment has been 
greatly checked. 

Of course the screening system was vital to any 
successful effort to control and check the trans- 
mission of fever germs by insects. But the early 
struggles of Col. Gorgas to get enough wire netting 
to properly protect the labor quarters were pathetic. 
"Why doesn't he screen in the whole Isthmus and 
let it go at that"? inquired one Congressman who 
thought it was all intended to put a few more frills 
on houses for already highly paid workers. The 
screening has indeed cost a pretty penny, for only 
the best copper wire will stand the test of the climate. 
At first there was reluctance on the part of disburs- 
ing officers to meet the heavy requirements of Col. 
Gorgas. But the yellow-fever epidemic of 1905 
stopped all that. Thereafter the screening was 
regarded as much of an integral part of a house as 
its shingling. 

Two large hospitals are maintained by the Canal 
Commission at Colon and at Ancon, together with 
smaller ones for emergency cases at Culebra and 
other points along the line. The two principal 



3i8 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

hospitals will be kept open after the completion of 
the Canal, but not of course to their full capacity. 
Ancon alone has accommodations for more than 
1500 patients, and when the army of labor has left 
the Zone there can be no possible demand for so 
great an infirmary. Both of these hospitals were 
inherited from the French, and the one at Colon 
has been left much in the condition they delivered 
it in, save for needed repairs and alterations. Its 
capacity has not been materially increased. The 
Ancon Hospital however has become one of the 
great institutions of its kind in the world. The 
French gave us a few buildings with over 300 
patients sheltered in tents. The Americans de- 
veloped this place until now more than fifty build- 
ings are ranged along the side of Ancon Hill. When 
the French first established the hospital they installed 
as nurses a number of sisters of St. Vincent with 
Sister Rouleau as Sister Superior. The gentle sisters 
soon died. The yellow fever carried them off with 
heart-rending rapidity. Sister Marie however left 
a monument which will keep her fair fame alive 
for many years yet to come. She was a great lover 
of plants, and the luxuriance of the tropical foliage 
was to her a never-ending charm. To her early 
efforts is due the beauty of the grounds of the 
Ancon Hospital, where one looks between the stately 
trunks of the fronded royal palms past a hillside 
blazing with hibiscus, and cooled with the rustling 



THE SANITATION OF THE ZONE 319 

of leaves of feather palms and plantains to where 
the blue Pacific lies smooth beneath the glowing 
tropic sun. 

Under our treaty the Zone sanitary department 
takes charge of the insane of Colon and Panama, 
and a very considerable share of the grounds at 
Ancon is divided o£E with barbed wire for their use. 
The number of patients runs well into the hundreds 
with very few Americans. Most are Jamaica 
negroes and the hospital authorities say that they 
are mentally unbalanced by the rush and excite- 
ment of life on the Zone. I never happened to 
see a Jamaica negro excited unless it happened to 
be a Tivoli Hotel waiter confronted with the awful 
responsibility of an extra guest at table. Then the 
excitement took the form of deep melancholy, 
exaggerated lethargy, and signs of suicidal mania 
in every facial expression. 

Besides the hospital service the sanitary depart- 
ment maintains dispensaries at several points on 
the line, where necessary drugs are provided for 
patients in the Commission Service free. Patent 
medicines are frowned upon, and such as are 
purveyed must be bought through the Commissary. 
Medical service is free to employees and their- 
families. All doctors practicing on the Zone are 
on the gold payroll for wages ranging from $1800 
to $7000 a year. I could not find upon inquiry 
that the fact that they were not dependent upon 



320 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

the patient for payment made the doctors less alert 
or sympathetic. At least no complaints to that 
effect were current. 

To my mind the most notable effect upon the 
life of the Zone of this system of free medical attend- 
ance was that it added one more to the many in- 
ducements to matrimony. Infantile colic and 
measles are shorn of much of their terror to the young 
parent when no doctor's bill attends them. Inci- 
dentally, too, the benevolent administration looks 
after the teeth of the employees as a part of its 
care of their general health. One effect of this is 
to impress the visitor with the remarkable number 
of incisors gleaming with fresh gold visible where 
Zone folk are gathered together. 

The annual vacations of the workers during the 
construction period may properly be considered in 
connection with sanitation work on the Zone, for 
they were not permitted to be mere loafing time. 
The man who took a vacation was not allowed to 
stay on the Isthmus. If he tried to stay there Col. 
Goethals found it out in that omniscient fashion of 
his and it was a case of hike for a change of air 
or go back to work. For, notwithstanding the fact 
that Col. Gorgas pulled the teeth of the tropics 
with his sanitary devices and regulations, an un- 
interrupted residence in that climate does break 
down the stamina and enfeeble the energy of men 
from more temperate climes. Every employee was 



THE SANITATION OF THE ZONE 321 

given 42 days' vacation with full pay, but he had 
to quit the Zone for some country which would 
afford a beneficial climatic change. Of course most 
went back to the United States, being encouraged 
thereto by a special rate on the steamship of $30 — 
the regular rate being $75. But besides this vacation 
each employee was entitled to 30 days* sick leave. 
It was not an exceedingly difficult task to conjure 
up enough symptoms to persuade a friendly physi- 
cian to issue a sick order. The favorite method of 
enjoying this respite from work was to spend as 
little of the time as possible at Ancon, and as much 
at the sanitarium on the Island of Taboga. 

That garden spot in the Bay of Panama where 
the French left the sanitarium building we now use 
is worth a brief description. You go thither in a 
small steamboat from Balboa or Panama and after 
about three hours* steaming a flock of little white 
boats, each with a single oarsman, puts out from 
the shore to meet you like a flock of gulls as you 
drop anchor in a bay of truly Mediterranean hue. 
To the traveled visitor the scene is irresistibly rem- 
iniscent of some little port of Southern Italy, and 
the reminder is all the more vivid when one gets 
ashore and finds the narrow ways betwixt the 
elbowing houses quite Neapolitan for dirt and ill 
odor. But from the sea one looks upon a towering 
hill, bare toward its summit, closely covered lower 
down by mango, wild fig and ceiba trees, bordered 



322 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

just above the red roofs of the little town by a 
fringe of the graceful cocoanut palms. Then come 
the houses, row below row, until they descend to 
the curving beach where the fishing boats are drawn 
up out of reach of the tide which rises some 20 feet. 
Agriculture in Taboga is limited to the culture 
of the pineapple, and the local variety is so highly 
esteemed in the Panama markets that some measure 
of prosperity might attend upon the Tabogans would 
they but undertake the raising of pines systematically 
and extensively. But not they. Their town was 
founded in 1549 when, at the instance of Las Casas, 
the King of Spain gave freedom to all Indian slaves. 
Taboga was set apart as a residence for a certain 
part of these freedmen. Now what did the free- 
dom from slavery mean but freedom from work? 
This view was probably held in the i6th century 
and certainly obtains in Taboga to-day, having 
been enhanced no doubt by the liberal mixture of 
negro blood with that of the native Indians. If the 
pineapples grow without too much attention well 
and good. They will be sold and the grogshops 
will know that real money has come into town. 
But as for seriously extending the business — well 
that is a thing to think of for a long, long time and 
the thought has not yet ripened. It is a wonder 
that the Chinese who hold the retail trade of the 
island and who are painstaking gardeners have not 
taken up this industry. 




I. AN UNSANITARY ALLEY. 2. BEGINNING SANITATION VCTllC 




Photo 1 (c) Photo 3 by Underwood & Underwood 

I. DREDGE WORKING IN A COLON STREET. 2. TYPICAL COLON 

STREET BEFORE PAVING. 3. STREET AFTER 

TREATMENT BY AMERICANS 



THE SANITATION OF THE ZONE 323 

We may laugh at the easy-going Tabogan if we 
will, but I do not think that anyone will come out 
of his church without a certain respect for his real 
religious sentiment. 'Tis but a little church, of 
stuccoed rubble, fallen badly into decay, flanked by 
a square tower holding two bells, and pene- 
trated by so winding and narrow a stair that one 
ascending it may feel as a corkscrew penetrating 
a cork. 

But within it shows signs of a reverent affection 
by its flock not common in Latin- American churches. 
We may laugh a little at the altar decorations which 
are certainly not costly and may be a little tawdry, 
but they show evidences of patient work on the 
part of the women, and contributions by the men 
from the slender gains permitted them by the harsh 
land and the reluctant sea. About the walls hang 
memorial tablets, not richly sculptured indeed, but 
showing a pious desire on the part of bygone genera- 
tions to have the virtue of their loved ones com- 
memorated within hallowed walls. Standing in a 
side aisle was an effigy of Christ, of human size, 
bearing the cross up the hill of Gethsemane. The 
figure stood on a sort of platform, siurrounded by 
six quaint lanterns of panes of glass set in leaded 
frames of a design seen in the street lamps of the 
earlier Spanish cities. The platform was on poles 
for bearers, after the fashion of a sedan chair, and 
we learned from one who, more fortimate than we, 



324 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

had been there to see, that in Holy Week there is 
a sort of Passion Play — rude and elementary it is 
true, but bringing to the siirface all the religious 
emotionalism of the simple people. The village is 
crowded with the faithful from afar, who make light 
of any lack of shelter in that kindly tropic air. The 
Taboga yoimg men dress as Roman soldiers, the 
village maidens take their parts in the simple 
pageant. The floats, such as the one we saw, are 
borne up and down the village streets which no 
horse could ever tread, and the church is crowded 
with devotional worshipers until Easter comes 
with the joyous tidings of the Resurrection. 

Near Taboga is the leper hospital, and the steamer 
stops for a moment to send ashore supplies in a 
small boat. Always there are about 75 victims of 
this dread and incurable disease there, mostly Pana- 
manians with some West India negroes. A native 
of North America with the disease is practically 
unknown. The affliction is horrible enough in itself, 
but some cause operating for ages back has caused 
mankind to regard it with more fear than the facts 
justify. It is not readily communicable to healthy 
persons, even personal contact with a leper not 
necessarily causing infection unless there be some 
scratch or woimd on the person of the healthy 
individual into which the virus may enter. Visitors 
to the Isthmus, who find interest in the spectacle of 
hopeless human suffering, frequently visit the colony 



THE SANITATION OF THE ZONE 325 

without marked precautions and with no reported 
case of infection. 

To what extent the sanitation system so pains- 
takingly built up by Col. Gorgas and his associates 
will be continued after the seal "complete" shall 
be stamped upon the Canal work, and the workers 
scattered to all parts of the land, is not now deter- 
mined. Panama and Colon will, of course, be kept 
up to their present standards, but whether the war 
against the malarial mosquito will be pursued in 
the jungle as it is today when the health of 40,000 
human beings is dependent upon it is another 
question. The plan of the army authorities is to 
abandon the Zone to nattue — which presumably 
includes the anopheles. Whether that plan shall 
prevail or whether the United States shall maintain 
it as an object lesson in government, including sani- 
tation, is a matter yet to be determined. 

At all times during his campaign against the forces 
of fever and infection Col. Gorgas has had to meet 
the opposition charge of extravagance and the waste 
of money. It has been flippantly asserted that it 
cost him $5 to kill a mosquito — of course an utterly 
baseless assertion, but one which is readily met by 
the truth that the bite of a single infected mosquito 
has more than once cost a life worth many thousand 
times five dollars. To fix precisely the cost of 
bringing the Zone to its present state of healthful- 
ness is impossible, because the activities of the 



326 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

sanitary department comprehended many functions 
in addition to the actual work of sanitation. Col. 
Gorgas figures that the average expenses of sanita- 
tion during the whole construction period were 
about $365,000 a year and he points out that for 
the same period Chicago spent $600,000 without 
any quarantine or mosquito work. The total ex- 
penditures for sanitation when the Canal is finished 
will have amounted to less than one per cent of 
the cost of that great public work and without this 
sanitation the Canal could never have been built. 
That simple statement of fact seems sufficiently to 
cover the contribution of Col. Gorgas to the work, and 
to measure the credit he deserves for its completion. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA 

THE Republic of Panama has an area of from 
30,000 to 35,000 square miles, roughly ap- 
proximating that of the state of Indiana. 
No complete survey of the country has ever been 
made and there is pending now a boundary dispute 
with Costa Rica in which the United States is arbi- 
trator. The only other boundary, not formed by 
the sea, is that at which Panama and Colombia 
join. But Colombia says there is no boundary at 
all, but that Panama is one of her provinces in a 
state of rebellion. So the real size and bounds of 
the Republic must be set down as somewhat inde- 
terminate. 

Panama is divided into five provinces, Bocas del 
Toro, Code, Colon, Chiriqui, Los Santos, Panama 
and Veragua. Its total population by the census 
of 191 1 was 386,749, a trifle more than the District 
of Columbia which has about one five-thousandth of 
its area, and almost precisely the same population as 
Montana which has less than half its size. So it is 
clearly not over-populated. Of its population 5 1 ,323 
are set down by its own census takers as white, 
191,933 as mestizo, or a cross between white and 

327 



328 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

Indian, 48,967 as negro, 2313 Mongol, and 14,128 
Indian. The census takers estimated that other 
Indians, living in barbarism remote from civilization 
and unapproachable by the enumerators, numbered 

36,138. 

All these figures have to be qualified somewhat. 
The mestizos are theoretically a cross between whites 
and Indians, but the negro blood is very generally 
present. It is doubtful, too, whether those classed 
as white are not often of mixed blood. 

The soil of the Republic differs widely in its vary- 
ing sections, from the rich vegetable loam of the 
lowlands along the Atlantic Coast, the outcome of 
years of falling leaves and twigs from the trees to 
the swamp below, to the high dry lands of the sa- 
vannas and the hillsides of the Chiriqui province. 
All are undeniably fertile, that is demonstrated by 
the rapid and rank growth of the jungle. But 
opinions differ as to the extent to which they are 
available for useful agriculture. Some hold that the 
jungle soil is so rich that the plants run to wood and 
leaves to the exclusion of fruits. Others declare that 
on the hillsides the heavy rains of the rainy seasons 
wash away the surface soil leaving only the harsh 
and arid substratum. This theory seems to be 
overthrown by the fact that it is rare to see a hill- 
side in all Panama not covered with dense vegeta- 
tion. A fact that is well worth bearing in mind is 
that there has never been a systematic and scientific 




I. A STREET IN CHORRERA. 2. TYPICAL NATIVE HUTS 
3. CHAGRES FROM ACROSS THE RIVER 




I. liNTERIOR OF NAT1\ K 111 T WITH NOTCHliD BAMBOO STAIRWAV. 
2. TYPICAL NATIVE HUTS 



THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA 329 

effort to utilize any part of the soil of Panama for 
productive purposes that has not been a success. 
The United Fruit Company in its plantations about 
Bocas del Toro has developed a fruitful province 
and created a prosperous town. In the province of 
Code a German company has set out about 
75,000 cacao trees, 50,000 coffee bushes and 
25,000 rubber trees, all of which have made good 
progress. 

The obstacles in the path of the fuller develop- 
ment of the national resources of Panama have sprung 
wholly from the nature of its population. The 
Indian is, of course, not primarily an agriculturist, 
nor a developer of the possibilities of the land he in- 
habits. The Spanish infusion brought to the native 
population no qualities of energy, of well-directed 
effort, of the laborious determination to build up a 
new and thriving commonwealth. Spanish ideals 
run directly counter to those involved in empire 
building. Such energy, such determination as built 
up our great northwest and is building in British 
Columbia the greatest agricultural empire in the 
world, despite seven months annually of drifting 
snow and frozen ground, would make of the Panama 
savannas and valleys the garden spot of the world. 
That will never be accomplished by the present 
agrarian population, but it is incredible that with 
population absorbing and overrunning the available 
agricultural lands of other zones, the tropics should 



330 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

long be left dormant in control of a lethargic a,nd 
indolent people. 

Some of the modem psychologists who are so ex- 
pert in solving the riddles of human consciousness 
that they hardly hesitate to approach the supreme 
problem of life after death may perhaps determine 
whether the indolence of the Panamanian is racial, 
climatic, or merely bred of consciousness that he 
does not have to work hard in order to get all the 
comforts of which he has knowledge. The life- 
story of an imaginary couple will serve as the short 
and simple annals of tens of thousands of Panama's 
poor : 

Miguel lived on the banks of the Chagres River, 
about half way between Cruces and Alhajuela. To 
him Cruces was a city. Were there not at least 
thirty huts of bamboo and clay thatched with pal- 
metto like the one in which he lived? Was there 
not a church of sawn boards, with an altar to which 
a priest came twice a month to say mass, and a 
school where a gringo taught the children strange 
things in the hated English tongue? Where he lived 
there was no other hut within two or three hours 
poling up the river, but down at Cruces the houses 
were so close together you could almost reach one 
while sitting in the shade of another. At home 
after dark you only heard the cry of the whippoor- 
will, or occasionally the wail of a tiger cat in the 
jungle, but at Cruces there was always the loud talk 



THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA 331 

of the men in the cantina, and a tom-tom dance 
at least once a week, when everybody sat up till 
dawn dancing to the beat of the dnmis and drinking 
the good rum that made them all so jolly. 

But greater than Cruces was the Yankee town of 
Matachin down on the banks o2 the river where the 
crazy Americans said there was going to be a lake 
that some day would cover all the country, and 
drown out Cruces and even his father's house. 
They were paying all the natives along the river for 
their lands that would be sunken, and the people 
were taking the pesos gladly and spending them 
gaily. They did not trouble to move away. Many 
years ago the French too said there would be a lake, 
but it never came and the French suddenly disap- 
peared. The Americans would vanish the same 
way, and a good thing too, for their thunderous 
noises where they were working frightened away all 
the good game, and you could hardly find an iguana, 
or a wild hog in a day's hunting. 

Once a week Miguel's father went down to market 
at Matachin, and sometimes the boy went along. 
The long, narrow cayuca was loaded with oranges, 
bananas and yams, all covered with big banana leaves, 
and with Miguel in the bow and his father in the stem 
the voyage commenced. Going down stream was 
easy enough, and the canoists plied their paddles 
idly trusting chiefly to the cturent to carry them 
along. But coming back would be the real work, 



332 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

then they would have to bend to their poles and 
push savagely to force the boat along. At places 
they would have to get overboard and fairly carry 
the boat through the swift, shallow rapids. But 
Miguel welcomed the work, for it showed him the 
wonders of Matachin, where great iron machines 
rushed along like horses, drawing long trains of 
cars; where more people worked with shovels tend- 
ing queer machines than there were in ten towns like 
Cruces; where folk gave pesos for bananas and gave 
cloth, powder and shot, things to eat in cans, and 
rum in big bottles for the pesos again. It was an 
exciting place this Matachin and made Miguel under- 
stand what the gringoes meant when they talked 
about New York, Chicago and other cities like it. 

When he grew older Miguel worked a while for the 
men who were digging away all this dirt, and earned \ 
enough to buy himself a machete and a gun and a few j 
ornaments for a girl named Maria who lived in j 
another hut near the river. But what was the use I 
of working in that mad way — picking up your shovel i 
when a whistle blew and toiling away until it blewi 
again, with a boss always scolding at you and ready 
with a kick if you tried to take a little siesta. The ! 
pesos once a week were good, that was true. If} 
you worked long enough you might get enough to 
buy one of those boxes that made music, but quien 
sabe? It might get broken anyway, and the iguanas 
in the jungle, the fish in the river and the yams and 



THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA 333 

bananas in the clearing needed no silver to come to 
his table. Besides he was preparing to become a 
man of family. Maria was quite willing, and so one 
day they strolled off together hand in hand to a 
clearing Miguel had made with his machete on the 
river bank. With that same useful tool he cut some 
wooden posts, set them erect in the ground and cov- 
ered them with a heavy thatch of palmetto leaves 
impervious to sun or rain. The sides of the shelter 
were left open during the first months of wedded life. 
Later, perhaps, when they had time they would go to 
Cruces at the period of the priest's regular visit and 
get regularly married; when the rainy season came 
on and walls were as necessary as a roof against the 
driving rain, they would build a little better. When 
that time came he would set ten stout uprights of 
bamboo in the ground in the shape of an oblong, 
and across the tops would fasten six cross pieces of 
girders with withes of vine well soaked to make 
them pliable. This would make the frame of the 
first floor of his house. The walls he would make 
by weaving reeds, or young bamboo stalks in and 
out betwixt the posts until a fairly tight basket- 
work filled the space. This was then plastered out- 
side with clay. The dirt, which in time would be 
stamped down hard, formed the floor. For his 
second story a tent-shaped frame of lighter bamboo 
tightly tied together was fastened to the posts, 
and cane was tied to each of the rafters as we nail 



334 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

laths to scantling. Thus a strong peaked roof, about 
eight feet high from the second floor to the ridge- 
pole was constructed, and thatched with palm leaves. 
Its angle being exceedingly steep it sheds water in 
the fierce tropic rain storms. The floor of the 
second story is made of bamboo poles laid trans- 
versely, and covered heavily with rushes and pal- 
metto. This is used only as the family sleeping 
apartment, and to give access to it Miguel takes an 
8-inch bamboo and cuts notches in it, into which 
the prehensile toes of his family may fit as they 
clamber up to the land of Nod. Furniture to the 
chamber floor there is none. The family herd to- 
gether like so many squirrels, and with the bamboo 
climbing pole drawn up there is no danger of in- 
trusion by the beasts of the field. 

In the typical Indian hut there is no furniture on 
the ground floor other than a rough hewn bench, 
a few pieces of pottery and gourds, iron cooking 
vessels and what they call a kitchen, which is in fact 
a large flat box with raised edges, about eight square 
feet in surface and about as high from the floor as 
a table. This is filled with sand and slabs of stone. 
In it a little fire is built of wood or charcoal, the 
stones laid about the fire support the pots and pans 
and cooking goes on as gaily as in any modern elec- 
tric kitchen. The contrivance sounds primitive, 
but I have eaten a number of excellent meals 
cooked on just such an apparatus. 



THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA 335 

Now it will be noticed that in all this habita- 
tion, sufficient for the needs of an Indian, there is 
nothing except the iron pots and possibly some pot- 
tery for which money was needed, and there are 
thousands of families living in just this fashion in 
Panama today. True, luxury approaches in its 
insidious fashion and here and there you will see a 
I1.25 white iron bed on the main floor, real chairs, 
canned goods on the shelves and — final evidence of 
Indian prosperity! — a crayon portrait of the head 
of the family and a phonograph, of a make usually 
discarded at home. But when Miguel and Maria 
start out on the journey of life a machete, a gun and 
the good will of their neighbors who will lend them 
yams until their own planting begins to yield forms 
a quite sufficient capital on which to establish their 
family. Wherefore, why work? 

It is beyond doubt to the ease with which life can 
be sustained, and the torpidity of the native imag- 
ination which depicts no joys to spur one on to 
effort that the unwillingness of the native to do sys- 
tematic work is due. And from this difficulty in 
getting labor follows the fact that not one quarter 
of the natural resources of Panama are developed. 
Whether the labor problem will be solved by the 
distribution throughout the republic of the Carib- 
bean blacks who have worked so well on the Zone 
is yet to be seen. It may be possible that because 
of this the fertile lands of Panama, or the savannas 



336 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

so admirably fitted for grazing, can only be utilized 
by great corporations who will do things on so great 
a scale as to justify the importation of labor. To- 
day the man who should take up a large tract of 
land in the Chiriqui country with a view to tilling 
it would be risking disaster because of the uncer- 
tainty of the labor supply. 

David, the largest interior town of Panama, is the 
central point of the cattle industry. All around it 
are woods, or jungles, plentifully interspersed with 
broad prairies, or llanos, covered with gra.ss, and 
on which no trees grow save here and there a wild 
fig or a ceibo. Cattle graze on the llanos, sleek 
reddish beasts with spreading horns like our Texas 
cattle. There are no huge herds as on our western 
ranges. Droves of from ten to twenty are about the 
average among the small owners who rely on the 
public range for subsistence. The grass is not suf- 
ficiently nutritious to bring the cattle up to market 
form, so the small owners sell to the owners of big 
ranches who maintain potreros, or fattening ground 
sown with better grasses. A range-fed steer will 
fetch $15 to $1 8, and after six or eight months on the 
potrero it will bring $30 to $35 from the cattle ship- 
per at David. Since the cost of feeding a beeve for 
that period is only about one dollar, and as the de- 
mand is fairly steady the profit of the ranchman 
is a good one. But like all other industries in 
Panama, this one is pursued in only a retail way. 



THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA 337 

The market is great enough to enrich ranchmen who 
would go into the business on a large scale, but for 
some reason none do. 

Passing from llano to llano the road cuts through 
the forest which towers dense and impenetrable on 
either side, broken only here and there by small 
clearings made by some native with the indispensable 
machete. These in the main are less than four 
acres. The average Panamanian farmer will never 
incur the scriptural curse laid upon them that lay 
field unto field. He farms just enough for his daily 
needs, no more. The ambition that leads our 
northern farmer to always covet the lands on the 
other side of his boimdary fence does not operate in 
Panama. One reason is, of course, the aggressive- 
ness of the jungle. Stubborn to clear away, it is 
determined in its efforts to regain the land from 
which it has been ousted. Such a thing as allowing 
a field to lie fallow for two or three years is unknown 
in Panama. There would be no field visible for the 
new jungle growth. 

The list of natural products of the Isthmus is im- 
pressive in its length and variety, but for most of them 
even the home demand is not met or supplied by the 
production. Only where some stimulating force from 
the outside has intervened, like the United Fruit 
Company with the banana, has production been 
brought up to anything like its possibility. In the 
Chiriqui coimtry you can see sugar cane fields that 



338 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

have gone on producing practically without atten- 
tion for fifteen seasons. Cornfields have been 
worked for half a century without fertilizing or ro- 
tation of crops. The soil there is volcanic detritus 
washed down during past ages from the mountain 
sides, and lies from six to twenty feet thick. It will 
grow anything that needs no frost, but the province 
supports less than four people to the square mile, 
nine-tenths of the land is unbroken and Panama im- 
ports fruit from Jamaica, sugar from Cuba and to- 
bacco and food stuffs from the United States. 

The fruits of Panama are the orange, which grows 
wild and for the proper cultivation of which no ef- 
fort has been made, which is equally the case with 
the lemon and the lime; the banana, which plays so 
large a part in the economic development of the 
country that I shall treat of it at length later; the 
pineapple, cultivated in a haphazard way, still at- 
tains so high an order of excellence that Taboga 
pines are the standard for lusciousness ; the mango, 
which grows in clusters so dense that the very trees 
bend under their weight, but for which as yet little 
market has been found, as they require an acquired 
taste; the mamei, hard to ship and difficult to eat 
because of its construction but withal a toothsome 
fruit; the paypaya, a melon not unlike our canta- 
loupe which has the eccentricity of growing on trees ; 
the sapodillo, a fruit of excellent flavor tasting not 
unlike a ripe persimmon, but containing no pit. 



THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA 339 

With cultivation all of these fruits could be grown 
in great quantities in all parts of the Republic, but 
to give them any economic importance some special 
arrangement for their regular and speedy marketing 
would have to be made, as with the banana, most 
of them being by nature extremely perishable. 

Coffee, sugar and cacao are raised on the Isth- 
mus, but of the two former not enough to supply 
the local demand. The development of the cacao 
industry to large proportions seems probable, as 
several foreign corporations are experimenting on ^ 
considerable scale. Cocoanuts are easily grown 
along both coasts of the Isthmus. A new grove 
takes about five years to come into bearing, costing 
an average of about three dollars a tree. Once es- 
tablished the trees bring in a revenue of about one 
dollar each at present prices and, as the demand for 
Panama cocoanuts is steady, the industry seems to 
offer attractive possibilities. The groves must be 
near the coast, as the cocoanut tree needs salt air 
to reach its best estate. Given the right atmos- 
pheric conditions they will thrive where no other 
plant will take root. Growing at the edge of the 
sea, water transportation is easy. 

The lumber of Panama will in time come to be 
one of its richest assets. In the dense forests hard- 
woods of a dozen varieties or more are to be found, 
but as yet the cost of getting it out is prohibitive 
in most sections. Only those forests adjacent to 



340 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

streams are economically valuable and such activity 
as is shown is mainly along the Bayano, Chucun- 
aque, and Tuyra Rivers. The list of woods is almost 
interminable. The prospectus of one of the com- 
panies with an extended territory on the Bayano 
River notes eighteen varieties of timber, commer- 
cially valuable on its territory. Among those the 
names of which are unfamiliar are the espave 
(sometimes spelled espeve), the cocobolo, the es- 
pinosa cedar, the zoro and the sangre. All are 
hard woods serviceable in cabinet making. The 
espave is as hard as mahogany and of similar color 
and marking. The trees will run four to five feet 
thick at the stump with saw timber 60 to 70 feet in 
length. Espinosa trees are of the cedar type, grow- 
ing to enormous size, frequently exceeding 16 feet in 
circumference. The cocobolo is a hard wood, but 
without the beauty to fit it for cabinet work. The 
sangre derives its name from its red sap which exudes 
from a gash like blood. It takes a high pohsh, and 
is in its general characteristics not unlike our cherry. 

The biggest business proposition in Panama is 
the United Fruit Company, as for that matter it is 
the biggest concern in all the tropics. Its activities 
in Panama however are peculiarly pertinent to the 
subject of this book. 

On the Atlantic coast, only a night's sail from 
Colon, is the port of Bocas del Toro (The Mouth 
of the Bull), a town of about 9000 inhabitants, built 




Photo 2 by Underwood & Underwood 

I. THE president's HOUSE. 2. MUNICIPAL BUILDING. 3. THE 
NATIONAL INSTITUTE. 4. THE NATIONAL PALACE OF PANAMA 




Photo 1 01/ Underwood & Underwood 
I. PANAMA FROM THE WATER FRONT. 2. THE OLD FIRE 
RESERVOIR 



THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA 341 

and largely maintained by the banana trade. Here 
is the largest and most beautiful natural harbor in 
the American tropics, and here some day will be es- 
tablished a winter resort to which will flock people 
from all parts of the world. Almirante Bay and the 
Chiriqui Lagoon extend thirty or forty miles, dotted 
with thousands of islands decked with tropical ver- 
dure, and flanked to the north and west by superb 
mountain ranges with peaks of from seven to ten 
thousand feet in height. 

The towns of Bocas del Toro and Almirante are 
maintained almost entirely by the banana trade. 
Other companies than the United Fruit raise and buy 
bananas here, but it was the initiative of the leading 
company which by systematic work put the prosper- 
ity of this section on a firm basis. Lands that a few 
years ago were miasmatic swamps are now improved 
and planted with bananas. Over 4,000,000 bunches 
were exported from this plantation in 191 1, and 
35,000 acres are under cultivation there. A nar- 
row gauge railway carries bananas exclusively. The 
great white steamships sail almost daily carrying 
away little except bananas. The money spent over 
the counters of the stores in Bocas del Toro comes 
from natives who have no way of getting money ex- 
cept by raising bananas and selling them, mostly to 
the United Fruit Company. It has its competitors, 
but it invented the business and has brought it to its 
highest development. At this Panama town, and 



342 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

for that matter in the other territories it controls, 
the company has established and enforces the sani- 
tary reforms which Col. Gorgas applied so effectively 
in Colon and Panama. Its officials proudly claim 
that they were the pioneers in inventing and apply- 
ing the methods which have conquered tropical dis- 
eases. At Bocas del Toro the company maintains 
a hospital which lacks nothing of the equipment of 
the Ancon Hospital, though of course not so large. 
It has successfully adopted the commissary system 
established on the Canal Zone. Labor has always 
been the troublesome factor in industrial enterprises 
in Central America. The Fruit Company has joined 
with the Isthmian Commission in the systematic 
endeavor to keep labor contented and therefore 
efficient. Probably it will be the policy which any 
corporation attempting to do work on a large scale 
will be compelled to adopt. 

To my mind the United Fruit Company, next to the 
Panama Canal, is the great phenomenon of the Carib- 
bean world today. Some day some one with knowl- 
edge will write a book about it as men have written 
the history of the British East India Company, or 
the Worshipful Company of Hudson Bay Adven- 
tures, for this distinctly American enterprise has 
accomplished a creative work so wonderful and so 
romantic as to entitle it to equal literary considera- 
tion. Its co6peration with the Republic of Panama 
and the manner in which it has followed the plans 



THE REPUBLIC OP PANAMA 343 

formulated by the Isthmian Commission entitles- 
it to attention in a book treating of Panama. 

The banana business is the great trade of the 
tropics, and one that cannot be reduced in volume 
by new competition, as cane sugar was checked by 
beet sugar. But it is a business which requires special 
machinery of distribution for its success. From the 
time the banana is picked until it is in the stomach of 
the ultimate consumer should not exceed three weeks. 
The fruit must be picked green, as, if allowed to 
ripen on the trees, it splits open and the tropical in- 
sects infect it. This same condition, by the way, af- 
fects all tropical fruits. All must be gathered while 
still unripe. The nearest wholesale market for ba- 
nanas is New Orleans, five days' steaming. New 
York is seven days away. That means that once 
landed the fruit must be distributed to commission 
houses and agents all over the United States with 
the utmost expedition lest it spoil in transit. From 
its budding near the Panama Canal to its finish in 
the alimentary canal of its final purchaser the banana 
has to be handled systematically and swiftly. 

To establish this machinery the United Fruit 
Company has invested more than $190,000,000 in 
the tropics — doubtless the greatest investment next 
to the Panama Canal made in that Zone. How 
much of this is properly a Panama investment can 
hardly be told, since for example the Fruit Com- 
pany's ships which ply to Colon and Bocas del Toro 



344 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

call at other banana ports as well. These ships are 
peculiarly attractive in design and in their clothing 
of snowy white, and I do not think there is any 
American who, seeing them in a Caribbean port, 
fails to wonder at the sight of British flags flying 
at the sterns. His surprise is not lessened when he 
learns that the company has in all more than lOO 
ships of various sizes, and nearly all of British 
registry. The transfer of that fleet alone to Ameri- 
can registry would be a notable and most desirable 
step. 

From officials of the company I learned that they 
would welcome the opportunity to transfer their 
ships to American registry, except for certain re- 
quirements of the navigation laws which make such 
a change hazardous. Practically all the ownership 
of the ships is vested in Americans and to fly the 
British flag is for them a business necessity. Chief 
among the objections is the clause which would give 
the United States authority to seize the vessels in 
time of war. It is quite evident that this power 
might be employed to the complete destruction of 
the Fruit Company's trade; in fact to its practical 
extinction as a business concern. A like power exist- 
ing in England or Germany would not be of equal 
menace to any single company flying the flag of that 
nation, for there the government's needs could be fully 
supplied by a proper apportionment of requisitions 
for ships among the many companies. But with the 



THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA 345 

exceedingly restricted merchant marine of the United 
States the danger of the enforcement of this right 
would be an ever-present menace. It is for this reason 
that the Fruit Company steamers fly the British flag, 
and the American in Colon may see, as I did one 
day, nine great ocean ships in the port with only one 
flying the stars and stripes. The opening of the Canal 
will not wholly remedy this. 

The banana is one of the few fruits which are free 
from insect pests, being protected by its thick, bitter 
skin. If allowed to ripen in the open, however, it 
speedily falls a prey to a multitude of egg-laying 
insects. The tree itself is not so immune. Lately 
a small rodent, something like the gopher of our 
American states, has discovered that banana roots 
are good to eat. From time immemorial he lived in 
the jungle, burrowing and nibbling the roots of the 
plants there, but in an unlucky moment for the fruit 
companies he discovered that tim.neling in soil that 
had been worked was easier and the roots of the culti- 
vated banana more succulent than his normal diet. 
Therefore a large importation of scientists from 
Europe and the United States to find some way of 
eradicating the industrious pest that has attacked the 
chief industry of the tropics at the root, so to speak. 

Baron Humboldt is said to have first called the 
attention of civilized people to the food value of the 
banana, but it was one of the founders of the United 
Fruit Company, a New England sea captain trading 



346 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

to Colon, who first introduced it to the general mar- 
ket in the United States. For a time he carried 
home a few bunches in the cabin of his schooner for 
his family and friends, but, finding a certain demand 
for the fruit, later began to import it systematically. 
From this casual start the United Fruit Company 
and its hustling competitors have grown. The 
whole business is the development of a few decades 
and people still young can remember when bananas 
were sold, each wrapped in tissue paper, for five or 
ten cents, while today ten or fifteen cents a dozen 
is a fair price. 

Several companies share with the United Fruit 
Company the Panama market. The methods of 
gathering and marketing the crop employed by all 
are practically the same, but the United Fruit Com- 
pany is used as an illustration here because its busi- 
ness is the largest and because it has so closely fol- 
lowed the Isthmian Canal Commission in its welfare 
work. 

The banana country lies close to the ocean and 
mainly on the Atlantic side of the Isthmus. The 
lumber industry nestles close to the rivers, mainly 
in the Bayano region. Cocoanuts need the beaches 
and the sea breezes. Native rubber is found in 
every part of the Republic, though at present it is 
collected mainly in the Darien, which is true also 
of vegetable ivory. The only gold which is mined 
on a large scale is taken from the neighborhood of 




Fhoto 2 by Underwood & Underwood 

I. NAOS, FLAMENCO AND PERIGO ISLANDS. 2. 
POINTING TO CANAL ENTRANCE 



GUN AT PANAMA 




I. LABOR TRAIN AT EVENING. 2. SILVER EMPLOYEES PAY-DAY 



THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA 347 

the Tuyra River in the Darien. But for products re- 
quiring cultivation like cacao and coffee the high 
lands in the Chiriqui province offer the best oppor- 
tunity. 

While the cattle business of the Chiriqui region is 
its chief mainstay it is far from being developed to 
its natural extent. The Commissary officials of the 
Canal organization tried to interest cattle growers to 
the extent of raising enough beef for the need of the 
Canal workers, but failed. Practically all of the 
meat thus used is furnished by the so-called "Beef 
Trust" of the United States. It is believed that 
there are not more than 50,000 head of cattle all 
told in Panama. I was told on the Isthmus that 
agents of a large Chicago firm had traveled through 
Chiriqui with a view to establishing a packing 
house there, but reported that the supply of cattle 
was inadequate for even the smallest establishment. 
Yet the cotmtry is admirably adapted for cattle 
raising. 

The climate of this region is equable, both 
as to temperatiure and humidity. Epidemic dis- 
eases are practically imknown among either men 
or beasts. Should irrigation in future seem need- 
ful to agriculture the multitude of streams furnish 
an ample water supply and innumerable sites for 
reservoirs. 

Westward from David the face of the country 
rises gently xmtil you come to the Caldera Valley 



348 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

which Hes at the foot of the Chiriqui Peak, an ex- 
tinct volcano perhaps 8000 feet high. Nowhere 
in Panama do the mountains rise very high, though 
the range is clearly a connection of the Cordilleras of 
North and South America. The Chiriqui Peak has 
not in the memory of man been in eruption, but the 
traces of its volcanic character are unmistakable. 
Its crater is a circular plain about half a mile in diam- 
eter surrounded by a densely wooded precipitous 
ridge. As the ascent is continued the woods give 
way to grass and rocks. While there is a distinct 
timber line, no snow line is attained. At the foot 
of the mountain is El Bouquette, much esteemed 
by the Panamanians as a health resort. Thither 
go Canal workers who, not being permitted 
to remain on the Zone during their vacations, 
wish to avoid the long voyage to North American 
ports. 

This neighborhood is the center of the coffee- 
growing industry which should be profitable in 
Panama if a heavy protective tariff coiild make it so. 
But not even enough of the fragrant berries are 
grown to supply home needs, and the industry is as 
yet largely prosecuted in an unsystematic and hap- 
hazard manner. It is claimed that sample ship- 
ments of coffee brought high prices in New York, 
but as yet not enough is grown to permit exporta- 
tion. Cacao, which thrives, is grown chiefly by Eng- 
lish and German planters, but as yet in a small way 



THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA 349 

only. Cotton, tobacco and fiber plants also grow 
readily in this region but are little cultivated. 

The thoughtful traveler will concede to the Re- 
public of Panama great natiural resources and a 
most happy entrance to the family of nations. It 
is the especial protege of the United States and 
under the watchful care of its patron will be free 
from the apprehension of misuse, revolution or 
invasion from without which has kept other Central 
American governments in a constant state of unrest. 
About the international morality of the proceedings 
which created the relations now existing between 
the United States and Panama perhaps the least 
said the better. But even if we reprobate the sale 
of Joseph by his brethren, in the scripture story, 
we must at least admit that he did better in Egypt 
than in his father's house and that the protection 
and favor of the mighty Pharaoh was of the highest 
advantage to him, and in time to his unnatural 
brethren as well. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE INDIANS OF PANAMA 

WHILE that portion of the Panama territory 
that lies along the border of Colombia known 
as theDarien is rather ill-defined as to area and 
to boundaries, it is known to be rich in timber and 
is believed to possess gold mines of great richness. 
But it is practically impenetrable by the white man. 
Through this country Balboa led his force on his 
expedition to the unknown Pacific, and was followed 
by the bloodthirsty Pedrarias who bred up in the 
Indians a hatred of the white man that has grown 
as the ages passed. No expedition can enter this 
region even today except as an armed force ready 
to fight for the right of passage. In 1786 the 
Spaniards sought to subdue the territory, built 
forts on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and 
established a line of trading posts connecting them. 
But the effort failed. The posts were abandoned. 
Today the white man who tries to enter the Darien 
does so at the risk of his life. Every condition which 
brought such frightful disaster upon the Strain party 
exists in the Darien today. The Indians are as hos- 
tile, the trails as faintly outlined, the jungle as dense, 
the insects as savage. Only along the banks of the 

350 



THE INDIANS OF PANAMA 351 

rivers has civilization made some little headway, but 
the richest gold field twenty miles back in the 
interior is as safe from civilized workings as though 
it were walled in with steel and guarded by dragons. 
Every speculative man you meet in Panama will 
assure you that the gold is there but all agree that 
conditions must be radically changed before it can 
be gotten out unless a regiment and a subsistence 
train shall follow the miners. 

The authorities of Panama estimate that there are 
about 36,000 tribal Indians, that is to say aborigines, 
still holding their tribal organizations and acknowl- 
edging fealty to no other government now in the 
Isthmus. The estimate is of course largely guess- 
work, for few of the wild Indians leave the jungle 
and fewer still of the census enumerators enter it. 
Most of these Indians live in the mountains of the 
provinces of Bocas del Toro, Chiriqui and Veragua, 
or in the Darien. Their tribes are many and the 
sources of information concerning them but few. 

To enumerate even by names the aboriginal 
tribes would be tedious and unavaihng. Among 
the more notable are the Doracho-Changuina, of 
Chiriqui, light of color, believing that the Great 
Spirit Hved in the volcano of Chiriqui, and occa- 
sionally showing their displeasure with him by 
shooting arrows at the mountain. The Guaymies, 
of whom perhaps 6000 are left, are the tribe that 
buried with their dead the curious golden images 



352 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

that were once plentiful in the bazaars of Panama, 
but are now hard to find. They have a pleasant 
practice of putting a calabash of water and some 
plantains by a man they think dying and leaving 
him to his fate, usually in some lonesome part of 
the jungle. The Cunas or Caribs are the tribes 
inhabiting the Darien. All were, and some are, 
believed still to be cannibals. Eleven lesser tribes 
are grouped under this general name. As a rule 
they are small and muscular. Most of them have 
abandoned their ancient gaudy dress, and so far as 
they are clothed at all wear ordinary cotton clothing. 
Painting the face and body is still practiced. The 
dead often are swung in hammocks from trees and 
supplied with fresh provisions until the cords rot 
and the body falls to the ground. Then the spirit's 
journey to the promised land is held to be ended 
and provisions are no longer needed. Sorcery and 
soothsaying are much in vogue, and the sorcerers 
who correspond to the medicine men of our North 
American Indians will sometimes shut themselves 
up in a small hut shrieking, beating tom-toms and 
imitating the cries of wild animals. When they 
emerge in a sort of self-hypnotized state they are 
held to be peculiarly fit for prophesying. 

All the Indians drink heavily, and the white man's 
rum is to some extent displacing the native drink 
of chica. This is manufactured by the women, 
usually the pld ones, who sit in a circle chewing 



THE INDIANS OF PANAMA 353 

yam roots or cassava and expectorating the saliva 
into a large bowl in the center. This ferments and is 
made the basis of a highly intoxicating drink. 
Curiously enough the same drink is similarly made 
in far-away Samoa. The dutiful wives after thus 
manufacturing the material upon which their spouses 
get drunk complete their service by swinging their 
hammocks, sprinkling them with cold water and 
fanning them as they lie in a stupor. Smoking is 
another social custom, but the cigars are mere hol- 
low rolls of tobacco and the lighted end is held in 
the mouth. Among some of the tribes in Comagre 
the bodies of the caciques, or chief men, were pre- 
served after death by surrounding them with a ring 
of fire built at a sufficient distance to gradually dry 
the body until skin and bone alone remained. 

The Indians with whom the visitor to Panama 
most frequently comes into contact are those of the 
San Bias or Manzanillo country. These Indians 
hover curiously about the bounds of civilization, and 
approach without actually crossing them. They 
are fishermen and sailors, and many of their young 
men ship on the vessels touching at Colon, and, after 
visiting the chief seaports of the United States, and 
even of France and England, are swallowed up again 
in their tribe without affecting its customs to any 
appreciable degree. If in their wanderings they 
gain new ideas or new desires they are not apparent. 
The man who silently offers you fish, fruits or vege- 



354 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

tables from his cayuca on the beach at Colon may- 
have trod the docks at Havre or Liverpool, the levee 
at New Orleans or wandered along South Street in 
New York. Not a word of that can you coax from 
him. Even in proffering his wares he does so with 
the fewest possible words, and an air of lofty in- 
difference. Uncas of the Leather- Stocking Tales was 
no more silent and self-possessed a redskin than he. 
In physiognomy the San Bias Indians are heavy 
of feature and stocky of frame. Their color is dark 
olive, with no trace of the negro apparent, for it 
has been their unceasing study for centuries to re- 
tain their racial purity. Their features are regular 
and pleasing and, among the children particularly, 
a high order of beauty is often found. To get a 
glimpse of their women is almost impossible, and a 
photograph of one is practically unknown. If over- 
taken on the water, to which they often resort in 
their cayucas, the women will wrap their clothing 
about their faces, rather heedless of what other por- 
tions of their bodies may be exposed, and make all 
speed for the shore. These women paint their faces 
in glaring colors, wear nose rings, and always blacken 
their teeth on being married. Among them more 
pains are taken with clothing than among most of 
the savage Indians, many of their garments being 
made of a sort of applique work in gaudy colors, 
with figures, often in representation of the human 
form, cut out and inset in the garment. 



THE INDIANS OF PANAMA 355 

So determined are the men of this tribe to main- 
tain its blood tmtamished by any admixture whatso- 
ever, that they long made it an invariable rule to 
expel every white man from their territory at night- 
fall. Of late years there has been a very slight re- 
laxation of this severity. Dr. Henri Pittier of the 
United States Department of Agriculture, one of the 
best-equipped scientific explorers in the tropics, 
several of whose photographs elucidate this volume, 
has lived much among the San Bias and the Cuna- 
Cuna Indians and won their friendship. His 
account of the attitude of these Indians toward 
outsiders, recently printed in the National Geo- 
graphic Magazine, is an authoritative statement on 
the subject: 

"The often circulated reports of the difficulty of 
penetrating into the territory of the Cuna-Cuna are 
true only in part", he says. "The backwoods abor- 
igines, in the valleys of the Bayano and Chucunaque 
rivers, have nourished to this day their hatred for 
all strangers, especially those of Spanish blood. 
That feeling is not a reasoned one : it is the instinctive 
distrust of the savage for the unknown or inexplic- 
able, intensified in this particiilar case by the tra- 
dition of a long series of wrongs at the hands of the 
hated Spaniards. 

"So they feel that isolation is their best policy, 
and it would not be safe for anybody to penetrate 
into their forests without a strong escort and con- 



356 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

tinual watchfulness. Many instances of murders, 
some confirmed and others only suspected, are on 
record, and even the natives of the San Bias coast 
are not a little afraid of their brothers of the moun- 
tains. 

"Among the San Bias Indians, who are at a far 
higher level of civilization, the exclusion of aliens 
is the result of well-founded political reasons. Their 
respected traditions are a long record of proud inde- 
pendence; they have maintained the purity of their 
race and enjoyed freely for hundreds of years every 
inch of their territory. They feel that the day the 
negro or the white man acquires a foothold in their 
midst these privileges will become a thing of the 
past. This is why, without undue hostility to 
strangers, they discourage their incin-sions. 

"Their means of persuasion are adjusted to the 
importance of the intruder. They do not hesitate 
to shoot at any negro of the nearby settlements 
poaching on their cocoanuts or other products; the 
trader or any occasional visitor is very seldom al- 
lowed to stay ashore at night; the adventurers who 
try to go prospecting into Indian territory are in- 
variably caught and shipped back to the next 
Panamanian port". 

It is quite unlikely however that the Indians will be 
able to maintain their isolation much longer. Already 
there are signs of its breaking down. While I was 
jn Panama they sent a request that a missionary, a 




BANANA MARKET AT MATACHIN 




Upper photos by H. Pitticr, copi/riglu. National (Jcoyraphic Magazine 
UPPER ROW — GUAYMI INDIANS. BELOW — SAN BLAS INDIAN GIRLS 



THE INDIANS OF PANAMA 357 

woman it is true, who had been much among them 
should come and live with them permanently. 
They also expressed a desire that she should bring 
her melodeon, thus giving new illustration to the 
poetic adage, "Music hath charms to soothe the 
savage breast". Perhaps the phonograph may in 
time prove the open sesame to many savage bosoms. 
Among this people it is the women who cling most 
tenaciously to the primitive customs, as might be 
expected, since they have been so assiduously 
guarded against the wiles of the world. But Cath- 
olic missionaries have made some headway in the 
country, and at Nargana schools for girls have been 
opened under auspices of the church. It is probably 
due to the feminine influence that the San Bias men 
return so unfailingly to primitive customs after the 
voyages that have made them familiar with civiliza- 
tion. If the women yield to the desire for novelty 
the splendid isolation of the San Bias will not long 
endure. Perhaps that would be unfortunate, for all 
other primitive peoples who have surrendered to the 
wiles of the white men have suffered and disap- 
peared. 

Polygamy is permitted among these Indians, but 
little practiced. Even the chiefs whose high estate 
gives them the right to more than one wife seldom 
avail themselves of the privilege. The women, as 
in most primitive tribes, are the hewers of wood and 
drawers of water. Dress is rather a more serious 



358 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

matter with them than among some of the other 
Indians, the Chocoes for example. They wear 
as a rule blouses and two skirts, where other denizens 
of the Darien dispense with clothing above the waist 
altogether. Their hair is usually kept short. The 
nose ring is looked upon as indispensable, and other 
ornaments of both gold and silver are worn by both 
sexes. Americans who have had much to do with 
the Indians of the Darien always comment on the 
extreme reticence shown by them in speaking of 
their golden ornaments, or the spot whence they 
were obtained. It is as though vague traditions 
had kept alive the story of the pestilence of fire and 
sword which ravaged their land when the Spaniards 
swept over it in search of the yellow metal. Gold is 
in the Darien in plenty. Everybody knows that, 
and the one or two mines near the rivers now being 
worked afford sufficient proof that the region is 
auriferous. But no Indian will tell of the existence 
of these mines, nor will any guide a white man to the 
spot where it is rumored gold is to be found. Seem- 
ingly ineradicably fixed in the inner consciousness 
of the Indian is the conviction that the white man's 
lust for the yellow metal is the greatest menace that 
confronts the well-being of himself and his people. 
The Choco Indians are one of the smaller and 
least known tribes of the Darien. Prof. Pittier — 
who may without disrespect be described as the 
most seasoned "tropical tramp" of all Central 



THE INDIANS OF PANAMA 359 

America — described them so vividly that extracts 
from his article in the National Geographic Maga- 
zine will be of interest : 

"Never, in our twenty-five years of tropical ex- 
perience, have we met with such a sun-loving, bright 
and trusting people, living nearest to nature and 
ignoring the most elementary wiles of so-called 
civilization. They are several hundred in number 
and their dwellings are scattered along the mean- 
drous Sambu and its main reaches, always at short 
distance, but never near enough to each other to form 
real villages. Like their houses, their small planta- 
tions are close to the river, but mostly far enough 
to escape the eye of the casual passer-by. 

"Dugouts drawn up on the beach and a narrow 
trail breaking the reed wall at the edge of the bank 
are the only visible signs of human presence, except 
at the morning hours and near sunset, when a crowd 
of women and children will be seen playing in the 
water, and the men, armed with their bows and 
long harpooned arrows, scrutinizing the deeper 
places for fish or looking for iguanas and crabs 
hidden in the holes of the banks. 

"Physically the Chocoes are a fine and healthy 
race. They are tall, as compared with the Cuna- 
Cuna, well proportioned, and with a graceful bear- 
ing. The men have wiry limbs and faces that are at 
once kind and energetic, while as a rule the girls are 
plump, fat, and full of mischief. The grown women 



360 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

preserve their good looks and attractiveness much 
longer than is generally the case in primitive peo- 
ples, in which their sex bears the heaviest share of 
every day's work. 

"Both males and females have unusually fine 
white teeth, which they sometimes dye black by 
chewing the shoots of one of the numerous wild pep- 
pers growing in the forests. The skin is of a rich 
olive-brown color and, as usual, a little lighter in 
women and children. Though all go almost naked, 
they look fairer than the San Bias Cunas, and some 
of the women would compare advantageously in this 
respect with certain Mediterranean types of the 
white race. 

"In men the every-day dress consists of a scanty 
clout, made of a strip of red calico about one foot 
broad and five feet long. This clout is passed in 
front and back of the body over a string tied around 
the hips, the forward extremity being left longer and 
flowing like an apron. On feast days the string is 
replaced by a broad band of white beads. Around 
the neck and chest they wear thick cords of the same 
beads and on their wrists broad silver cuffs. Hats 
are not used; the hair is usually tied with a red rib- 
bon and often adorned with the bright flowers of the 
forest. 

"The female outfit is not less simple, consisting of 
a piece of calico less than three feet wide and about 
nine feet long, wrapped around the lower part of the 



THE INDIANS OF PANAMA 361 

body and reaching a little below the knees. This is 
all, except that the neck is more or less loaded with 
beads or silver coins. But for this the women dis- 
play less coquetry than the men, which may be 
because they feel sufficiently adorned with their 
mere natural charms. Fondness for cheap rings is, 
however, common to both sexes, and little children 
often wear earrings or pendants. 

"The scantiness of the clothing is remedied very 
effectually by face and body painting, in which 
black and red colors are used, the first exclusively 
for daily wear. At times men and women are 
painted black from the waist down ; at other times it 
is the whole body or only the hands and feet, etc., 
all according to the day's fashion, as was explained 
by one of our guides. For feast days the paintings 
are an elaborate and artistic affair, consisting of 
elegantly drawn lines and patterns — red and black 
or simply black — which clothe the body as effectually 
as any costly dress. 

"From the above one might conclude that cleanli- 
ness and modesty are not the rule among the Chocoes. 
As a matter of fact, the first thing they do in the 
morning is to jump into the near-by river, and these 
ablutions are repeated several times in the course of 
the day". 

In the country which will be traversed by the 
Panama-David Railroad are found the Guaymies, 
the only primitive people living in large numbers 



362 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

outside the Darien. There are about 5000 of them, 
Hving for the most part in the valley of Mirando 
which lies high up in the Cordilleras, and in a region 
cut off from the plains. Here they have successfully 
defended their independence against the assaults of 
both whites and blacks. To remain in their country 
without consent of the Great Chief is practically 
impossible, for they are savage fighters and in earUer 
days it was rare to see a man whose body was not 
covered with scars. It is apparent that in some 
ways progress has destroyed their industries and 
made the people less rather than more civilized, for 
they now buy cloth, arms, tools, and utensils which 
they were once able to make. At one time they 
were much under the influence of the Catholic mis- 
sionaries, but of late mission work has languished in 
wild Panama and perhaps the chief relic of that 
earlier religious influence is the fact that the women 
go clothed in a single garment. This simple raiment, 
not needed for warmth, seems to be prized, for if 
caught in a rainstorm the women will quickly strip 
off their clothing, wrap it in a large banana or palm 
leaf that it may not get wet, and continue their 
work, or their play, in nature's garb. 

It is said too that when strangers are not near 
clothes are never thought of. ■ The men follow a 
like custom, and invariably when pursuing a quarry 
strip off their trousers, tying their shirts about their 
loins. Trousers seem to impede their movements. 




^h/'-^i^ 



I'ltvliix by II. I'iliiir, vo Xaliou'il (lunjrdplnc Magazine 

TYPES OF INDIANS IN THE DARIEN 



THE INDIANS OF PANAMA 363 

and if a lone traveler in Chiriqui comes on a row of 
blue cotton trousers tied to the bushes he may be 
sure that a band of Guaymies is somewhere in the 
neighborhood pursuing an ant bear or a deer. 

Once a year the Guaymies have a great tribal 
feast — "balceria" the Spaniards call it. Word is 
sent to all outlying huts and villages by a mystic 
symbol of knotted rags, which is also tied to the 
branches of the trees along the more frequented 
trails. On the appointed day several hundred will 
gather on the banks of some river in which a general 
bath is taken, with much frolicking and horseplay. 
Then the women employ several hours in painting 
the men with red and blue colors, following the 
figures still to be seen on the old pottery, after 
which the men garb themselves uncouthly in bark 
or in pelts like children "dressing up" for a frolic. 
At night is a curious ceremonial dance and game 
called balsa, in which the Indians strike each other 
with heavy sticks, and are knocked down amid the 
pile of broken boughs. The music — if it could be 
so called — the incantations of the wisemen, the 
frenzy of the dancers, all combine to produce a sort 
of self-hypnotism, during which the Indians feel no 
pain from injuries which a day later often prove to 
be very serious. 

Thus far what we call civilization has dealt less 
harshly with the Indians of the Isthmus than with 
our own- They have at least survived it and kept 



364 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

a great part of their territory for their own. The 
"squaw-man" who figures so largely in our own 
southwestern Indian country is unknown there. 
Unquestionably dining the feverish days of the 
Spaniards' hunt for gold, the tribes were frightfully 
thinned out, and even today sections of the country 
which writers of Balboa's time describe as thickly 
populated are desert and untenanted. Yet much 
land is still held by its aboriginal owners, and unless 
the operation of the Canal shall turn American 
settlement that way will continue so to be held. 
The Panamanian has not the energy to dislodge the 
Indians nor to till their lands if he shoiild possess 
them. 



CHAPTER XV 

SOCIAL LIFE ON THE CANAL ZONE 

FROM ocean to ocean the territory which is called 
the Canal Zone is about forty-three miles long, 
ten miles wide and contains about 436 square 
miles, about ninety-five of which are under the waters 
of the Canal, and Miraflores and Gatun Lakes. It is 
bounded on the north by the Caribbean Sea, on the 
south by the Pacific Ocean, and on the east and 
west by the Republic of Panama. It traverses 
the narrowest part of Panama, the waist so to 
speak, and has been taken out of that body politic 
by the diplomatic surgeons as neatly as though 
it had been an obnoxious vermiform appendix. 
Its population is shifting, of course, and varies 
somewhat in its size according to the extent to which 
labor is in demand. The completion of a part of the 
work occasionally reduces the force. In January, 
19 1 2, the total population of the Zone, according 
to the official census, was 62,810; at the same time, 
by the same authority, there were c^mployed by the 
Canal Commission and the Panama Railroad 36,600 
men. These figures emphasize the fact that the 
working force on the Zone is made up mainly of 
unmarried men, for a working population of 36,600 

365 



366 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

would, under the conditions existing in the ordinary 
American community, give a population of well over 
100,000. Though statistics are not on hand, and 
would probably be impossible to compile among the 
foreign laborers, it is probable that not more than 
one man in four on the Zone is married. From this 
situation it results that the average maiden who 
visits the Zone for a brief holiday goes rushing home 
to get her trousseau ready before some young 
engineer's next annual vacation shall give him time 
to go like a young Lochinvar in search of his bride. 
Indeed, the life of the Zone for many reasons has 
been singularly conducive to matrimony, and as a 
game preserve for the exciting sport of husband- 
hunting, it has been unexcelled. 

Perhaps it may be as well to turn aside from the 
orderly and informative discussion of the statistics 
of the Zone to expand a little further here upon 
the remarkable matrimonial phenomena it presented 
in its halcyon days — for it must be remembered that 
even as I am writing, that society, which I found 
so hospitable and so admirable, has begun to dis- 
integrate. Marriage, it must be admitted, is a 
somewhat cosmopolitan passion. It attacks spig- 
gotty and gringo alike. In an earlier chapter I have 
described how the low cost of living enabled Miguel 
of the Chagres country to set up a home of his 
own. Let us consider how the benevolent arrange- 
ments made by the Isthmian Canal Commission 



SOCIAL LIFE ON THE ZONE 367 

impelled a typical American boy to the same 
step. 

Probably it was more a desire for experience 
and adventure than any idea of increased financial 
returns that led young Jack Maxon to seek a job 
in engineering on the Canal. Graduated from the 
engineering department of a State university, with 
two years or so of active experience in the field, 
Jack was a fair type of young American — clean, 
wholesome, healthy, technically trained, ambitious 
for his future but quite solicitous about the pleas- 
ures of the present, as becomes a youth of twenty- 
three. 

The job he obtained seemed at the outset quite 
ideal. In the States he could earn about $225 a 
month. The day he took his number on the Canal 
Zone he began to draw $250 a month. And that 
$250 was quite as good as $300 at home. To begin 
with he had no room-rent to pay, but was assigned 
comfortable if not elegant quarters, which he shared 
with one other man, carefully screened and protected 
from all insects by netting, lighted by electricity, 
with a shower-bath handy and all janitor or chamber- 
maid service free. Instead of a boarding-house 
table or a cheap city restaurant, he took his meals 
at a Commission hotel at a charge of thirty cents 
a meal. Clothing troubles him little; his working 
clothes of khaki, and several suits of white cotton 
duck will cost him less than one woolen suit such 



368 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

as he must have "up home". All seasons are alike 
on the Zone, and there is no need of various types 
of hats, overcoats and underwear. All in all Jack is 
neither overworked nor underpaid. His letters to 
his chums at home tell no stories of adversity but 
rather indicate that he is enjoying exceedingly good 
times. With reasonable care he will have ample 
means for really lavish expenditures on his vacation. 
Indeed it would require rather unreasonable 
effort to spend an engineer's salary on the Zone 
unless it went in riotous living in Panama City 
or Colon. 

But a vision of better things opens before him — 
is always spread out before his enraptured vision. 
His friend who came down a year or two before him 
and who is earning only a little bit more money 
sets a standard of living which arouses new ambi- 
tions in Jack's mind. His friend is married. In- 
stead of one room shared with one or more tired 
engineers subject to grouches, he has a four-room 
apartment with bath — really a five-room flat, for 
the broad sheltered balconies shaded by vines form 
the real living-room. Instead of eating at the 
crowded, noisy hotels, he has his quiet dining-room, 
and menus dictated by individual taste instead of 
by the mechanical methods of a Chief of Subsistence. 
Practically everything that can be done for the 
household by official hands is done free by the 
Commission — free rent, free light, free janitor 



SOCIAL LIFE ON THE ZONE 369 

service, free distilled water, free fuel foi- cooking — 
the climate saves that bugbear of married life at 
home,'^the annual coal bill. Moreover the flat or 
house comes to its tenant freely furnished. The 
smallest equipment supplied consists of a range, 
two kitchen chairs, a double bed, a mosquito bar, 
two pillows, a chiffonier, a double dresser, a double 
mattress, a dining table, six dining chairs, a side- 
board, a bedroom mat, two center tables and three 
wicker porch chairs. This equipment is for the 
moderately paid employees who live in four-family 
quarters. The outfit is made more comprehensive 
as salaries increase. 

Housekeepers must buy their own tableware, 
bedclothes, light furniture and bric-a-brac. But 
here again the paternal Commission comes to the 
rescue, for these piu-chases, and all others needful 
for utility, comfort or beauty, are made at the Com- 
missary stores, where goods are sold practically at 
cost. Moreover, there is no protective tariff collected 
on imported goods and it would take another article 
to relate the rhapsodies of the Zone women over 
the prices at which they can buy Bovdton tableware, 
Irish linen, Swiss and Scandinavian delicatessen, 
and French products of all sorts. And finally, to 
round out the privileges of married life on the Zone, 
medical service is free and little Tommy's slightest 
ill may be prescribed for without fear of the doctor's 
bill — though, indeed, the children you see romping 



370 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

in the pleasant places do not look as though they 
ever needed a prescription or a pill. 

So Jack looks from his bachelor quarters over 
toward Married Row and it looks good to him. 
Were he at home prudence would compel the 
consideration of cost. Here the paternal Com- 
mission puts a premium on matrimony. Very 
often, so often, indeed, that it is almost the rule, 
Jack returns from his first vacation home with a 
wife, or else coming alone is followed by the girl, 
and all goes merry as a marriage bell. But the 
time comes when Jack, a bachelor no longer, but 
a husband and perhaps a father, must leave the 
Isthmus. That time must come for all of them 
when the work is done. Enough, however, have 
already gone home to tell sad tales of the difficulty 
of readjusting themselves to normal conditions. 
Down comes the salary at least twenty-five per 
cent, up go living expenses at least thirty per cent. 
Nothing at home is free — coal, light, rent, and 
medical service least of all. Where Jack used to 
be lordly, he must be parsimonious; where he 
once bought untaxed in the markets of the world, 
he must buy in the most expensive of all market 
places, the United States. One wonders if the 
paternalism of the Commission has been good for 
those who enjoyed it. But it has been good for 
the supreme purpose of digging the Canal and that 
was the one end sought. 



SOCIAL LIFE ON THE ZONE 371 

Let me return from this excursion into the domain 
of matrimonial philosophy and take up once again 
the account of the population of the Zone and its 
characteristics. It must be remembered that a very 
large part of the unskilled labor on the Canal is 
done by negroes from Jamaica and Barbadoes. 
But not all of it. The cleavage was not so distinct 
that the skilled labor could be classed as white, and 
the unskilled black, for among the latter were many 
Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians and the peoples of 
Southwestern Europe. The brilliant idea occurred 
to someone in the early days of the American cam- 
paign that as the West Indians, Panamanians and 
Latin-Americans generally were accustomed to do 
their monetary thinking in terms of silver all day 
labor might be put on the silver pay roll; the more 
highly paid workers on a gold pay roll. Thence- 
forward the metal line rather than the color line 
was drawn. The latter indeed would have been 
difficult as the Latin-American peoples never drew 
it very definitely in their marital relations, with the 
result that a sort of twilight zone made any very 
positive differentiation between whites and blacks 
practically impossible. So despite Bobby Bums' 
historic dictum — 

"the gowd is but the guinea's stamp 
The man's the man for a' that", 

on the Zone the man is silver or gold according to 
the nature of his work and the size of his wages. 



372 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

Of gold employees there were in 1913, 5362, of 
silver 31,298, so it is easy to see which pay roll 
bore the names of the aristocracy. 

In endeavoring to make things pleasant and easy 
for the gold employee the Isthmian Commission has 
made so many provisions for his comfort that many 
timid souls at home raised the cry of "socialism" 
and professed to discern in the system perfected by 
Col. Goethals the entering wedge that would split 
in pieces the ancient system of free competition 
and the contract system for public work. Let us, 
however, consider this bogey of socialism fairiy. 
Before proceeding to a more detailed account of the 
manner of Hfe upon the Canal Zone let me 
outline hastily the conditions which regarded super- 
ficially seem socialistic, and with a line or two show 
why they are not so at all. 

Our Uncle Sam owns and manages a line of steam- 
ships plying between New York and Panama, carry- 
ing both passengers and freight and competing 
successfully with several lines of foreign-built ships. 
The largest vessels are of ten thousand tons and 
would rank well with the lesser transatlantic liners. 
On them Congressmen and Panama Zone officials are 
carried free, while employees of the Isthmian Canal 
Commission get an exceedingly low rate for them- 
selves and their families. The government also 
owns and conducts the Panama Railroad, which 
crosses in less than three hovurs from the Atlantic 



SOCIAL LIFE ON THE ZONE 373 

to the Pacific, while the privately owned railroads 
of the United States take about seven days to pass 
from one ocean to the other. This sounds like a 
^g^ty good argument for government ownership 
and it is not much more fallacious than some others 
drawn from Isthmian conditions. 

The government which rims this railroad and 
steamship line doesn't confine its activity to big 
things. It will wash a shirt for one of its Canal 
employees at about half the price that John China- 
man doing business nearby would charge, press his 
clothing, or it will send a man into your home — 
if you live in the Zone — to chloroform any stray 
mosquitoes lurking there and convey them away 
in a bottle. It will house in an electric-lighted, 
wire-screened tenement, a Jamaica negro who at 
home lived in a basket-work shack, plastered with 
mud and thatched with palmetto leaves. It is very 
democratic too, this governm.ent, for it won't issue 
to Mrs. Highflyer more than three wicker arm- 
chairs, even if she does entertain every day, while 
her neighbor Mrs. Domus who gets just exactly as 
many never entertains at all. It can be just too 
mean for anything, like socialism, which we are 
so often told ''puts everybody on a dead level". 

The dream of the late Edward Bellamy is given 
actuality on the Zone where we find a great central 
authority, buying everything imaginable in all the 
markets of the world, at the moment when prices 



374 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

are lowest — an authority big enough to snap its 
fingers at any trust — and selling again without 
profit to the ultimate consumers. There are no 
trust profits, no middlemen's profits included in 
prices of things bought at the Commissary stores. 
There are eighteen such stores in the Zone. The 
total business of the Commissary stores amounts to 
about $6,000,000 annually. Everything is sold at 
prices materially less than it can be bought in the 
United States, yet the department shows an actual 
profit, which is at once put back into the business. 
A Zone housewife told me that a steak for her 
family that would cost at least ninety cents in her 
home in Brooklyn cost her forty here. Shoddy 
or merely "cheap" goods are not carried and the 
United States pure food law is strictly observed. 
That terrible problem of the "higher cost of living" 
hardly presents itself to Zone dwellers. 

Now the chief material argument for the socialistic 
state, the cooperative commonwealth, is that it 
will secure for every citizen comfort and content- 
ment, so far as contentment is possible to restless 
human minds; that it will abolish at a stroke 
monopoly and privilege, purge society of parasites, 
add to the efficiency of labor and proportionately 
increase its rewards. All of which is measurably 
accomplished on the Canal Zone and the less 
cautious socialists — the well-grounded ones see 
the difference — are excusable for hailing the gov- 



SOCIAL LIFE ON THE ZONE 375 

emment there as an evidence of the practicability 
of sociaHsm. 

But it isn't — at least not quite. The incarnation 
of the difference between this and socialism is Col. 
George W. Goethals, Nobody on the Zone had 
part in electing Goethals ; nobody can say him nay, 
or abate or hinder in any degree his complete 
personal control of all that is done here. This is 
not the cooperative commonwealth we long have 
sought. 

This is a benevolent despotism, the sort of govern- 
ment that philosophers agree would be ideal if the 
benevolence of the despot could only be assured 
invariably and eternally. The Czar of Russia could 
do what is being done down there were he vested 
with Goethals' intolerance of bureaucracies, red- 
tape, parasites, grafters, disobedience and delay. 
But Goethals is equally intolerant of opposition, 
argument, even advice from below. His is the 
military method of personal command and personal 
responsibility. 

But what has been done, and is still doing, on the 
Zone is not socialistic, because it is done from the 
top, by the orders of an autocrat. Col. Goethals com- 
manded an army. The Isthmus was the enemy. The 
army must be fed and clothed, hence the Commissary. 
Its communications must be kept open, hence the 
steamship line and the railroad. The soldiers must 
be housed, and as it became early apparent that 



376 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

the siege was to be a long one the camps were built 
of timber instead of tents. 

No. The organization of the Zone has been 
purely military, not socialistic. It was created for 
a purpose and it will vanish when that purpose has 
been attained. Admirably adapted to its end it 
had many elements of charm to those living under 
it. The Zone villages, even those like Culebra and 
Gorgona which are to be abandoned, were beautiful 
in appearance, delightful in social refinement. 
Culebra with its winding streets, bordered by tropical 
shrubbery in which nestled the cool and commodious 
houses of the engineers and higher employees, leading 
up to the hill crested by the residence of the Colonel 
— of course there were five colonels on the Commis- 
sion, but only one "The Colonel" — Culebra was a 
delight to the visitor and must have been a joy to 
the resident. 

Try to figure to yourself the home of a young 
engineer as I saw it. The house is two stories 
with a pent-house roof, painted dark green, with 
the window frames, door casings and posts of the 
broad verandas, by which it is nearly siurounded, 
done in shining white. Between the posts is wire 
netting and behind is a piazza probably twelve feet 
wide which in that climate is as good as a room for 
living, eating or sleeping purposes. The main body 
of the house is oblong, about fifty feet long by thirty 
to forty feet deep. A living-room and dining-room 




I. AVENIDA CENTRALE NEAR THE STATION. 2. PANAMA POTTERY 
VENDERS. 3. NEGRO QUARTERS AT ANCON 




Photo 2 by Underwood & Underwood 
I. TYPICAL Y. M. C. A. CLUB. 2. INTERIOR OF A CLUB HOUSE 



SOCIAL LIFE ON THE ZONE 377 

fill the entire front. The hall, instead of running 
from the front to the back of the house, as is 
customary with us, runs across the house, back of 
these two rooms. It is in no sense an entry, though 
it has a door opening from the garden, but separates 
the living rooms from the kitchen and other working 
rooms. The stairway ascends from this hall to the 
second floor where two large bedrooms fill the front 
of the house, a big bathroom, a bedroom and the 
dryroom being in the rear. About that last apart- 
ment let me go into some detail. The climate of 
the Zone is always rather humid, and in the rainy 
season you can wring water out of everything that 
can absorb it. So in each house is a room kept 
tightly closed with two electric lights in it burning 
day and night. Therein are kept all clothes, shoes, 
etc., not in actual use, and the combined heat and 
light keep damp and mold out of the goods thus 
stored. Mold is one of the chief pests of the 
Panama housekeeper. You will see few books in 
even the most tastefully furnished houses, because 
the mold attacks their bindings. Every piano has 
an electric light inserted within its case and kept 
burning constantly to dispel the damp. By way 
of quieting the alarm of readers it may be mentioned 
again that electric Hght is furnished free to Isthmian 
Commission employees. "We always laugh", said 
a hostess one night, as she looked back at my 
darkened room in her house from the walk outside, 



378 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

"at the care people from the States take to turn! 
out the lights. We enjoy being extravagant and 
let them burn all day if we feel like it". 

In such a house there is no plaster. From within i 
you see the entire frame of the house — uprights, 
joists, stanchions, floor beams, all — and the interior 
is painted as a rule precisely like the exterior without 
the white trimming. You don't notice this at first. 
Then it fascinates you. You think it amusing and 
improper to see a house's underpinning so indecently 
exposed. All that we cover with laths, plaster, 
calcimine and wall paper is here naked to the eye. 
Only a skin of half -inch lumber intervenes between 
you and the outer world, or the people in the next 
room. You notice the windows look strange. 
There is no sash. To a house of the sort I am de- 
scribing four or six glass windows are allotted to 
be put in the orifices the housekeeper may select. 
The other windows are unclosed except at night, 
when you may, if you wish, swing heavy board 
shutters across them. 

A house of the type I have described is known as 
Type 10, and is assigned to employees drawing 
from $300 to $400 a month. Those getting from 
$200 to $300 a month are assigned either to quarters 
in a two-family house, or to a small cottage of six 
or seven rooms, though, as the supply of the latter 
is limited, they are greatly prized. Employees 
drawing less than $200 a month have four-room 



SOCIAL LIFE ON THE ZONE 379 

flats in buildings accommodating four families. 
Those who receive more than $400 a month are 
given large houses of a type distinguished by 
spaciousness and artistic design. 

When you come to analyze it such houses are only 
large shacks, and yet their proportions and coloring, 
coupled with their obvious fitness for the climate, 
make them, when tastefully furnished and decorated, 
thoroughly artistic homes. For these homes the 
Commission furnishes all the bare essentials. With 
mechanical precision it furnishes the number of 
tables, chairs, beds and dressers which the Com- 
mission in its sovereign wisdom has decided to be 
proper for a gentleman of the station in life to which 
that house is fitted. For the merely esthetic the 
Commission cares nothing, though it is fair to say 
that the furniture it supplies, though commonplace, 
is not in bad taste. But for decoration the Zone 
dwellers must go down into their own pockets and 
to a greater or less degree all do so. 

Housekeeping is vastly simplified by the Com- 
missary. When there is but one place to shop, and 
only one quality of goods to select from — namely 
the best, for that is all the Commissary carries — the 
shopping tasks of the housekeeper are reduced to a 
minimum. Nevertheless they grumble — perhaps be- 
cause women like to shop, more probably because 
this situation creates a dull and monotonous same- 
ness among the families. "What's the good of 



38o PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

giving a dinner party", asked a hostess plaintively, 
"when your guests all know exactly what everything 
on your table costs, and they can guess just what 
you are going to serve? They say, 'I wish she'd 
bought lamb at the Commissary, it costs just the 
same as turkey'. Or 'the Commissary had new 
asparagus today. Wonder why she took cauli- 
flower'? They get the Commissary list just as I 
do and know exactly to what I am limited, as we 
can only buy at the Commissary. There is no 
chance for the little surprises that make an in- 
teresting dinner party". 

That is perhaps a trifle disquieting to the adven- 
turous housekeeper, but, except for the purpose of 
entertaining, the Commissary must be a great boon. 
Its selection of household necessities is sufficiently 
varied to meet every need; the quality the best and 
its prices are uniformly lower than in the United 
States. 

The only wail I heard on the Isthmus about the 
increasing cost of living had to do with the wages 
of servants. "In the earlier days", said one of my 
hostesses reminiscently, "it was possible to get 
servants for very low wages. They were ac- 
customed to doing little and getting little, as in 
Jamaica and other West Indian islands, where many 
servants are employed by one family, each with a 
particular 'line'. People say that in Panama City 
servants can still be found who will work for $5 



SOCIAL LIFE ON THE ZONE 381 

silver ($2.50) per month, and that Americans have 
spoiled them by paying too much. But I think 
they have developed a capacity for work and 
management equal to that of servants in the States 
and deserve their increased wages. I pay $15, gold, 
a month to my one capable servant. Occasionally 
you will find one who will work for $10, but many 
get $20 if they are good cooks and help with baby. 
Probably $12 to $15 is an average price. 

"These Jamaica servants speak very English 
English — you can't call it Cockney, for they don't 
drop their h's, but it differs greatly from our 
American English. They are very fond of big 
words, which they usually use incorrectly, especially 
the men. A Commissary salesman, to whom I sent 
a note asking for five pounds of salt meat, sent back 
the child who carried it to 'ask her mother to 
differentiate', meaning what kind of salt meat. A 
cook asked me once 'the potatoes to crush, ma'am*? 
meaning to, ask if they were to be mashed. Another 
after seizing time to air a blanket between showers 
reported exultantly, 'the rain did let it sun, mum'. 
And always when they wish to know if you want 
hot water they inquire, 'the water to hot, mum'? 

"Their names are usually elaborate. Celeste, 
Geraldine, Katherine, Eugenie, are some that I 
recall. My own maid is Susannah, which reminds 
me — without reflecting on this particular one — that 
as a class they are hopelessly unmoral, though 



382 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

extremely religious withal. I have known them to 
be clean and efficient, but as a rule they are quite 
the reverse. Some are woefully ignorant of modern 
utensils. One, for example, being new to kitchen 
ranges, built a fire in the oven on the first day of 
her service. Another, having been carefully in- 
structed always to take a visitor's card on a tray, 
neglected the trim salver provided for that purpose 
and extended to the astonished caller a huge 
lacquered tin tray uced for carrying dishes from the 
kitchen. 

" I'll never forget", concluded my hostess between 
smiles and sorrow, "how I felt when I saw that 
lonesome little card reposing on the broad black 
and battered expanse of that nasty old tray"! 

When the settlement of the Zone first began the 
women were dismally lonely, and the Commission 
called in a professional organizer of women's clubs 
to get them together. Clubs were organized from 
Ancon to Cristobal and federated with Mrs. Goethals 
for President and Mrs. Gorgas for Vice-President. 
Culebra entertained Gorgona with tea and Tolstoi, 
and Empire challenged Corozal to an interchange 
of views on eugenics over the coffee cups and wafers. 
In a recent number of The Canal Record, the official 
paper of the Zone, I find nearly a page given over 
to an account of the activities of the women's 
societies and church work. It appears that there 
were in April, 191 3, twenty-five societies of various 



SOCIAL LIFE ON THE ZONE 383 

sorts existing among the women on the Zone. The 
Canal Zone Federation of Women's Clubs had five 
subsidiary clubs with a membership of fifty-eight. 
There were twelve church organizations with a 
membership of 239. Nearly 290 women were 
enrolled in auxiliaries to men's organizations. But 
these organizations were rapidly breaking up even 
then, and the completion of the Canal will witness 
their general disintegration. They served their 
purpose. Only a mind that could mix the ideal 
with the practical could have foreseen that^dis- 
cussions of the Baconian Cipher, or the philosophy 
of Nietzsche might have a bearing on the job of 
digging a canal, but whoever conceived the idea 
was right. 

The same clear foresight that led the Commission 
to encourage the establishment of women's clubs 
caused the installation of the Y. M. C. A. on the 
Isthmus, where it has become perhaps the dom- 
inating social force. With a host of young bach- 
elors employed far away from home there was 
need of social meeting places other than the saloons 
of Panama and Colon. Many schemes were sug- 
gested before it was determined to turn over the 
whole organization of social clubs to the governing 
body of the Y. M. C. A. There were at the period 
of the greatest activity on the Zone seven Y. M. 
C. A. clubs located at Cristobal, Gatun, Porto 
Bello, Gorgona, Empire, Culebra and Corozal. 



384 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

The buildings are spacious, and, as shown by the 
illustrations, of pleasing architectural style. On the 
first floor are a lobby, reading-room and library, 
pool and billiard room, bowling alley, a business-like 
bar which serves only soft drinks, a quick lunch 
counter, and in some cases a barber shop and baths. 
On the second floor is always a large assembly-room 
used for entertainments and dances. This matter 
of dancing was at first embarrassing to the Y. M. 
C. A., for at home this organization does not en- 
courage the dreamy mazes of the waltz, and I am 
quite sure frowns disapprovingly on the swaying 
tango and terrible turkey trot. But conditions on 
the Isthmus were different and though the organiza- 
tion does not itself give dances, it permits the use 
of its halls by other clubs which do. The halls also 
are used for moving-picture shows, concerts and 
lectures. 

The service of the Y. M. C. A. is not gratuitous. 
Members pay an annual fee of $10 each. This, 
however, does not wholly meet the cost of mainte- 
nance and the deficit is taken care of by the Com- 
mission, which built the club houses at the outset. 
That the service of the organization is useful is 
shown by the fact that Col. Goethals has recom- 
mended the erection of a concrete club house to 
cost $52,500 in the permanent town of Balboa. 

Church work, too, has been fostered by the Com- 
mission. Twenty-six of the churches are owned 



SOCIAL LIFE ON THE ZONE 385 

by it, and all but two are on land it owns. In 19 12 
there were forty churches on the Zone — seven 
Roman Catholic, thirteen Episcopal, seven Baptist, 
two Wesleyan and eight undenominational. Fifteen 
chaplains are maintained by the government, ap- 
portioned among the denominations in proportion 
to their numbers. Much good work is done by the 
churches, but one scarcely feels that the church 
spirit is as strong as it would be among the same 
group of people in the States. The changed order 
of life, due to the need of deferring to tropical condi- 
tions, has something to do with this. The stroll 
home from church at midday is not so pleasant a 
Sunday function under a glaring tropical sun. More- 
over no one town can support churches of every 
denomination, and the railroad is at least impartial 
in that it does not encourage one to go down the 
line to church any more than to a dance or the 
theater. 

Even as I write the disintegration of this society 
has begun. On the tables of the Zone dwellers 
you find books about South America or Alaska 
— the widely separated points at which opportunity 
for engineering activity seems to be most promising. 
Alaska particularly was at the time engaging the 
speculative thought of the young engineers in view 
of the discussion in Congress of the advisability of 
building two government railroads in that territory. 
The proposition of moving thither the Canal organi- 



386 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

zation was highly pleasing to the younger men who 
seemed to think that working over glacial moraines 
and running lines over snow fields would form a 
pleasing sequel to several years in the tropical 
jimgles and swamps. 



CHAPTER XVI 

LABOR AND THE GOVERNMENT OF THE 

ZONE 

Y its provision for the comfort of the un- 
married employees the Isthmian Commission 
has justified the allegation that it systematic- 
ally encourages matrimony among the men. The 
bachelor employee upon the gold roll is housed in 
large barracks which rarely afford him a room to 
himself, but ordinarily force upon him one, two or 
even three "chums". The intimacies of chumming 
are delightful when sought, but apt to be irksome 
when involuntary. The bachelor quarters house 
from twelve to sixty men, and are wholly made up 
of sleeping rooms. The broad screened verandas 
constitute the only living-room or social hall. If 
that does not serve the young bachelor's purpose he 
has the Y. M. C. A. which is quite as public. In 
fact, unless he be one of the few favored with a room 
to himself, he must wander off, like a misanthrope, 
into the heart of the jimgle to meditate in solitude. 
As hard outdoor work does not make for misan- 
thropy most of them wander off to the church and 
get married. 

387 



388 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

The unmarried employees take their meals in 
what are called Commission Hotels, though these 
are hotels only in the sense of being great eating 
houses. Here men and women on the gold roll are 
served, for there are bachelor girls on the Zone and 
at these hotels special veranda tables are reserved 
for them and for such men as retain enough of the 
frills of civilization as to prefer wearing their coats 
at their meals. Meals for employees cost thirty 
cents each, or fifty cents for non-employees. There 
is some divergence of judgment concerning the 
excellence of this food. Col. Roosevelt, while on 
the Isthmus, evaded his guides, dashed into a Com- 
mission hotel and devoured a thirty-cent meal, 
pronouncing it bully and declaring it unapproach- 
able by any Broadway meal at |i.oo. The Colonel 
sincerely believed that his approach was unheralded, 
but they do say on the Zone that his descent was 
"tipped off" like a raid in the "Tenderloin", and 
that a meal costing the contractors many times 
thirty cents was set before him. 

The string of Commission hotels, i8 in all, 
serve about 200,000 meals monthly. There are 
also 17 messes for European laborers who pay 
40 cents per ration of three meals a day. Sixteen 
kitchens serve the West India laborers who get 
three meals for 27 cents. About 100,000 meals of 
this sort are served monthly. Receipts and expendi- 
tures for the line hotels, messes and kitchens are 



THE GOVERNMENT OP THE ZONE 389 

very nicely adjusted. The Official Handbook puts 
receipts at about $105,000 a month; expenditures, 
$104,500. 

As I have noted, the hotels are not open to all 
sorts and conditions of men. Those which I have 
described are established for the use of gold em- 
ployees only. Different methods had to be adopted 
in providing lodging and eating places for the more 
than 30,000 silver employees, most of whom belong 
to the unskilled labor class. About 25,000 of the 
silver employees are West Indians, mainly from 
Jamaica or the Barbados, though some French are 
found. A very few Chinese are employed. In 1906 
Engineer Stevens advertised for 2500 Chinese coolies, 
and planned to take 15,000 if they offered them- 
selves, but there was no considerable response. 

In all forty nationalities and eighty-five geograph- 
ical subdivisions were noted in the census of 19 12. 
Greenland is missing, but if we amend the hymn to 
"From Iceland's icy mountains to India's coral 
strand", it will fit the situation. When work was 
busiest the West Indian laborers were paid 10 cents 
an hour, for an eight-hour day, except in the case 
of those doing special work who got 16 and 20 cents. 
The next higher type of manual labor, largely com- 
posed of Spaniards, drew 20 cents. Artisans re- 
ceived from 16 to 44 cents an hour. In figuring the 
cost of work it was the custom of the engineers to 
reckon the West Indian labor as only 33 per cent 



390 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

as efficient as American labor. That is to say, $3 
paid to a Jamaican produced no greater results 
than 1 1 paid to an American. Reckoned by results 
therefore, the prices paid for native labor were 
high. 

Quarters and a Commissary service were of course 
provided for the silver employees. Their quarters 
were as a rule huge barracks, though many of the 
natives and West Indians spurn the free quarters 
provided by the Commission and make their homes 
in shacks of their own. This is particularly the case 
with those who are married, or living in the free 
unions not uncommon among the Jamaica negroes. 
The visitor who saw first the trim and really at- 
tractive houses and bachelor quarters assigned to 
the gold employees could hardly avoid a certain 
revulsion of opinion as to the sweetness and light 
of Isthmian life when he wandered into the negro 
quarters across the railroad in front of the Tivoli 
Hotel at Ancon, or in some of the back streets of 
Empire or Gorgona. The best kept barracks for 
silver employees were at Cristobal, but even there the 
restlessness and independence of the Jamaicans were 
so great that many moved across into the frame 
rookeries of the native town of Colon. 

In the crowded negro quarters one evidence of the 
activities of the sanitation department was largely 
missing. No attempt was made to screen all the 
barracks and shacks that housed the workers. But 



THE GOVERNMENT OF THE ZONE 391 

the self-closing garbage can, the oil-sprinkled gutters, 
the clean pavement and all the other evidences of 
the activities of Col. Gorgas' men were there. Per- 
haps the feature of the barracks which most puzzled 
and amused visitors to the Zone were the kitchens. 
Imagine a frame building 300 feet long by 75 feet 
wide, three stories high with railed balconies at 
every story. Perched on the rails of the balustrades, 
at intervals of 20 feet, and usually facing a door 
leading into the building are boxes of corrugated 
iron about 3 feet high, the top sloping upward like 
one side of a roof and the inner side open. These 
are the kitchens — one to each family. Within is 
room for a smoldering fire of soft coal, or charcoal, 
and a few pots and frying pans. Here the family 
meal is prepared, or heated up if, as is usually the 
case, the ingredients are obtained at the Com- 
missary kitchen. 

The reader may notice that the gold employees are 
supplied with food at a fixed price per meal; the 
silver employees at so much per ration of three meals. 
The reason for this is that it was early discovered 
that the laborers were apt to economize by irregu- 
larity in eating — seldom taking more than two meals 
a day and often limiting themselves to one, making 
that one of such prodigious proportions as to unfit 
them for work for some hours, after which they went 
unfed until too weak to work properly. As the 
Commission lost by this practice at both ends, the 



392 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

evil was corrected by making the laborers pay for 
three meals, whether they ate them or not — and 
naturally they did. It is a matter of record that 
the quality of the work improved notably after this 
expedient was adopted. 

In 1909 the Commission reported with satisfaction 
that "the rations at the messes for European 
laborers have been increased, among the additions 
being wine three times a week instead of twice a 
week". This record of accompUshment suggests 
some account of the way in which the problem of 
the liquor traffic was handled on the Zone during 
the most active period of construction work and 
prior to the order abolishing all liquor selling. The 
problem was a difficult one, for the Zone was in effect 
a government reservation, and under a general law 
of Congress the sale of liquor on such reservations 
is prohibited. But on this reservation there were 
at divers times from 34 to 63 licensed saloons. 
July I, 1913, all licenses were canceled and the 
Zone went "dry". The earlier latitude granted to 
liquor sellers was excused by the necessities of the 
case. The Spanish and Italian laborers were 
accustomed to have wine with their meals and were 
not contented without it. But at the later date 
the end of the work was in sight. There was no 
longer need to secure contented labor at the expense 
of violating a national statute. Hence the imposi- 
tion of a stem prohibition law. 



THE GOVERNMENT OF THE ZONE 393 

The saloons of the Zone, viewed superficially, 
seemed to be conducted for the convenience and 
comfort of the day laboring class— the silver em- 
ployees — mainly. The police regulations made any 
particular attractiveness other than that suppHed 
by their stock in trade quite impossible. They could 
not have chairs or tables — "perpendicular drinking" 
was the rigid rule. They could not have cozy 
comers, snuggeries, or screens — all drinking must 
be done at the bar and in full view of the 
passers-by. Perhaps these rules discouraged the 
saloonkeepers from any attempt to attract the better 
class of custom. At any rate the glitter of mirrors 
and of cut glass was notably absent and the sheen 
of mahogany was more apparent in the complexions 
of the patrons than on the woodwork of the bar. 
They were frankly rough, frontier whisky shops, 
places that cater to men who want drink rather than 
companionship, and who when tired of standing at 
the bar can get out. Accordingly most of the saloons 
were in the day laborer quarters, and it was seldom 
indeed that a "gold employee" or salaried man 
above the grade of day laborer was seen in one. 
The saloons paid a high license tax which was 
appropriated to the schools of the Zone, and they 
were shut sharp at eleven o'clock because, as the 
chief of police explained, "we want all the laborers 
fit and hearty for work when the morning whistle 
blows". 



394 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

That is the keynote of all law and rule on the 
Zone — to keep the employees fit for work. If morals 
and sobriety are advanced why so much the better, 
but they are only by-products of the machine which 
is set to grind out so many units of human labor 
per working day. 

The Commissary branch of the Subsistence De- 
partment is a colossal business run by the govern- 
ment for the good of the dwellers on the Zone. 
It gathers together from the ends of the earth every- 
thing needful for these pampered wards of Uncle 
Sam, and sells its stock practically at cost price. 
From pins to pianos, from pigs-knuckles to pate de 
foie gras you can get every article of use or luxury 
at the Commissary. At least you can in theory, 
in fact the statement needs toning down a little, 
for you will hear plenty of grumbling on the Zone 
about the scanty satisfaction derived from shopping 
in "that old Commissary". 

All the same its activities are amazing. It launders 
linen at prices that make the tourist who has to 
pay the charges of the Tivoli Laundry envy the 
employees their privileges. It bakes bread, cake and 
pies for the whole 65,000 of the working population, 
and does it with such nice calculation that there is 
never an overstock and the bread is always fresh. 
Everything of course is done by machinery. Knead- 
ing dough for bread and mixing cement and gravel 
to make concrete are merely coordinate tasks in 



THE GOVERNMENT OF THE ZONE 395 

the process of building the Canal and both are 
performed in the way to get the best results in the 
least time. Everything is done by wholesale. 
Hamburger steak is much liked on the Isthmus, 
so the Commissary has a neat machine which makes 
500 pounds of it in a batch. That reminds me of 
a hostess who preferred to make her own Hamburger 
steak, and so told her Jamaica cook to mince up 
a piece of beef. Being disquieted by the noise of 
chopping, she returned to the kitchen to find the 
cook diligently performing the appointed task with 
a hatchet. 

In the icy depths of the cold storage plant at 
Cristobal, where the temperature hovers around 14 
degrees, while it is averaging 96 outside, you walk 
through long avenues of dressed beef, broad pergolas 
hung with frozen chicken, ducks and game, sunken 
gardens of cabbage, carrots, cauliflower and other 
vegetable provender. You come to a spot where a 
light flashes fitfully from an orifice which is presently 
closed as a man bows his head before it. He 
straightens up, the light flashes and is again blotted 
out. You find, on closer approach, two men testing 
eggs by peering through them at an electric light. 
Betwixt them they gaze thus into the very soul of 
this germ of life 30,000 times a day, for thus many 
eggs do they handle. Yet the odds are that neither 
has read the answer to the riddle, "did the first hen 
lay the first egg, or the first egg hatch the first 



396 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

chicken"? Unless relieved by some such philo- 
sophical problem to occupy the mind one might 
think the egg tester's job would savor of monotony. 

If one is fond of big figures the records of the 
Commissary Department furnish them. The bakery 
for example puts forth over 6,000,000 loaves of bread, 
651,844 rolls and 114,134 pounds of cake annually. 
Panama is a clean coimtry. Every tourist exclaims 
at the multitudinous companies of native women 
perpetually washing at the river's brink and in the 
interior I never saw a native hut without quantities 
of wash spread out to dry. But the Commissary 
laundry beats native industry with a record in one 
year of 3,581,923 pieces laundered — and it isn't much 
of a climate for "biled" shirts and starched collars 
either. There is a really enterprising proposition 
under consideration for the retention of this laundry. 
A ship going west would land all its laundry work 
at Cristobal and by the time it had made the pas- 
sage of the Canal — 10 hours — all would be delivered 
clean at Balboa via the railroad. East-bound 
ships would send their laundry from Balboa by rail. 

It is an amazing climate for ice cream however, 
and the Commissary supplied 110,208 gallons of 
that. Some other annual figures that help to 
complete the picture of mere size are butter, 
429,267 pounds; eggs, 792,043 dozen; poultry, 
560,000 pounds; flour, 320,491 pounds. 

Salaries on the Zone during the period of the 



THE GOVERNMENT OF THE ZONE 397 

"big job" were much higher than in the States, 
but it is probable that upon reorganization they will 
be materially reduced for those who remain in 
permanent service — of these Col. Goethals reckons 
that there will be for the Canal alone about 2700. 
If the Panama Railroad organization should be 
kept up to its present strength there will be in all 
about 7700 men employed. This is altogether 
unlikely however. The railroad will no longer 
have the construction work and debris of the 
Canal to carry, and the ships will take much of its 
commercial business away. During the construction 
period the wages paid were as follows: 

Col. Goethals $21,000 

Other Commissioners, each 14,000 

Clerks $ 75 to $250 monthly 



Foremen 75 

Engineers 225 

Draftsmen 100 

Master mechanics 225 

Physicians 150 

Teachers 60 



275 
600 
250 

275 
300 
no 



Policemen 80 " 107.50 

The minimum wage of a gold employee is $75 a 
month ; the maximum, except in the case of heads of 
departments, $600. The hourly pay in some sample 
trades was, blacksmith, 30 to 75 cents; bricklayers, 
65 cents; carpenters, 32 to 65 cents; iron workers, 
44 to 70 cents; painters, 32 to 65 cents; plumbers, 



398 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

32 to 75 cents. In the higher paid trades steam 
engineers earned I75 to $200 a month; locomotive 
engineers from $125 to $210, and steam shovel 
engineers $210 to $240. 

Some of the hourly rates are said to be nearly 
double those paid in the United States, and the 
workers had the added advantages of free quarters 
and the other perquisites of employment heretofore 
described. 

The Zone police force compels admiration. It is 
not spectacular, but is eminently business-like and 
with the heterogeneous population with which it 
has to deal it has no doubt been busy. At the outset 
President Roosevelt sent down to command it an 
old-time Rough Rider comrade of his. In late years 
a regular army officer has been Chief of Police. At 
the earlier period it was a problem. Not only was 
the population rough and of mixed antecedents, but 
many foreign nations were looking on the Isthmus 
as an excellent dumping place for their criminals and 
other undesirable citizens. It was not quite Botany 
Bay, but bade fair to rival that unsavory penal colony. 
Closer scrutiny of applicants for employment checked 
that tendency, and a vigorous enforcement of the 
criminal law together with the application of the 
power to deport undesirables soon reduced the popu- 
lation to order. 

In the cities of Colon and Panama is little or 
no public gambling, and the brood of outlaws that 



THE GOVERNMENT OF THE ZONE 399 

follow the goddess chance are not to be found there. 
On the Zone is no gambling at all. Even private 
poker games, if they become habitual, are broken 
up by quiet warnings from the police. It isn't that 
there is any great moral aversion to poker, but men 
who sit up all night with cards and chips are not 
good at the drawing board or with a transit the 
next day. Everything on the Zone, from the food 
in the Commissary to the moral code, is designed with 
an eye single to its effect on the working capacity 
of the men. It is a fortunate thing that bad morals 
do not as a rule conduce to industrial efficiency, else 
I shudder at what Col. Goethals might be tempted 
to do to the Decalogue. 

The police force in its latter days was in the com- 
mand of a regular army officer. In 1 9 1 3 it numbered 
332 policemen, two inspectors and a chief. Of the 
policemen 90 were negroes, all of whom had been in 
the West India constabulary or in West Indian 
regiments of the British army. The white policemen 
had all served in the United States army, navy or 
marine corps. The men are garbed in khaki, and 
look more like cavalrymen than police officers — 
indeed a stalwart, well-set-up body of a high order 
of intelligence and excellent carriage. Arrests are 
numerous, yet not more so than in an American 
city of 65,000 people. Of about 150 convicts nearly 
all are black and these are employed in the construc- 
tion of roads within the Zone, 



400 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

Children thrive on the Canal Zone. Nearly every 
visitor who has had the time to go into the residence 
sections of Culebra, Gorgona and other large Canal 
villages has exclaimed at the number of children 
visible and their uniform good health. Naturally 
therefore a school system has grown up of which 
Americans, who lead the world in public education, 
may well be proud. Three thousand pupils are 
enrolled and, besides a superintendent and general 
officials, eighty teachers attend to their education. 
The school buildings are planned and equipped ac- 
cording to the most approved requirements for 
school hygiene, and are especially adapted to the 
tropics — which means that the rooms are open to 
the air on at least two sides, and that wide aisles 
and spaces between the desks give every child at 
least twice the air space he would have had in a 
northern school. 

The children like their elders come in for the 
beneficence of the Commission. Free books, free 
stationery, free medical treatment and free transpor- 
tation are provided for all. Prof. Frank A. Cause, 
superintendent of the Zone schools, is an Indianian 
and has taken a justifiable pride in developing the 
school system there so that it shall be on a par 
with the schools of like grades in "the States". He 
declares that so far as the colored schools are con- 
cerned they are of a higher degree of excellence 
than those in our more northern communities. 




Lower Photo by Underwood & Underwood 
TYPICAL SCREENED HOUSES AT COROZAL, EMPIRE AND CULEBRA 




Fhotus (c) bu Underwood & Underwood 

I. workmen's dining car. 2. workmen's sleeping car. 
3. tourists' sight-seeing car 



THE GOVERNMENT OF THE ZONE 401 

Native and West Indian children attend the schools 
of this class, in which the teachers are colored 
men who have graduated in the best West Indian 
colleges and who have had ample teaching experience 
in West Indian schools. 

The curriculum of the Zone schools covers all the 
grades up to the eighth, that is the primary and 
grammar school grades, and a well-conducted high 
school as well. Pupils have been prepared for 
Harvard, Wellesley, Vassar and the University of 
Chicago. The white schools are all taught by 
American teachers, each of whom must have had 
four years' high school training, two years in either 
a university or a normal school and two years of 
practical teaching experience. These requirements 
are obviously higher than those of the average 
American city school system. Prof. Gause declares 
that politics and the recommendation of politicians 
have no share in the administration of the Zone 
schools, though the efforts of Washington statesmen 
to place their relatives on the payroll have been 
frequent and persistent. 

For the native and West Indian children a course 
in horticulture is given and school gardens estab- 
lished in which radishes, beans, peas, okra, papayas, 
bananas, turnips, cabbages, lettuce, tomatoes, and 
yams are cultivated. It is worth noting that con- 
siderable success has been achieved with products 
of the temperate zone, though especial care was 



402 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

needed for their cultivation. One garden of three- 
quarters of an acre produced vegetables worth $350. 
There is a tendency among Americans on the Zone 
to decry the soil as unfit for any profitable agricul- 
ture. A very excellent report on "The Agricultural 
Possibilities of the Canal Zone", issued by the 
Department of Agriculture, should effectually still 
this sort of talk. To the mere superficial observer 
it seems incredible that a soil which produces such 
a wealth of useless vegetation should be unable to 
produce anything useful, and the scientists of the 
Department of Agriculture have shown that that 
paradoxical condition does not exist. Practically 
all our northern vegetables and many of our most 
desirable fruits can be raised on the Zone according 
to this report. 

Consideration of the agricultural and industrial 
possibilities of the Canal Zone is made desirable, 
indeed imperative, by the proposition of the military 
authorities to abandon the whole territory to the 
jungle — to expel from it every human being not 
employed by the Canal Commission or the Panama 
Railroad, or not having business of some sort in 
connection with those organizations. The argument 
advanced by Col. Goethals and other military experts 
is that the Canal is primarily a military work. That 
the Canal Zone exists only because of and for the Ca- 
nal, and should be so governed as to protect the dams 
and locks from any treacherous assault is admitted. 



THE GOVERNMENT OF THE ZONE 403 

The advocates of the depopulation program insist 
that with a residence on the Zone refused to any 
save those employed by the Commission and subject 
to its daily control, with the land grown up once 
more into an impenetrable jungle so that access to 
the Canal can be had only through its two ends, or 
by the Panama Railroad — both easily guarded — 
the Canal will be safe from the dynamiter hired by 
some hostile government. 

It may be so, but there is another side to the 
question. The Canal Zone is an outpost of a high 
civilization in the tropics. It affords object lessons 
to the neighboring republics of Central America 
in architecture, sanitation, road building, education, 
civil government and indeed all the practical arts 
that go to make a State comfortable and prosperous. 
Without intention to offend any of the neighboring 
States it may fairly be said that the Zone, if main- 
tained according to its present standards, should 
exercise an influence for good on all of them. It is 
the little leaven that may leaven the whole lump. 

When the Canal is once in operation there will 
be from 75,000 to 100,000 people on the Zone 
and in the two native cities within it to fur- 
nish a market for the food products that can be 
raised on that fertile strip of land. Today the 
vegetables of the temperate zone are brought 3000 
miles to the Zone dwellers, sometimes in cold storage, 
but chiefly in cans. As for those who live in the 



404 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

Panama towns and are denied access to the Com- 
missary, they get fresh vegetables only from the 
limited supply furnished by the few Chinese market 
gardens. According to the Department of Agri- 
culture nearly all vegetables of the temperate clime 
and all tropical fruits can be grown on the Zone 
lands. This being the case it seems a flat affront 
to civilization and to the intelligent utilization of 
natural resources to permit these lands to revert 
to the jungle, and force oiu: citizens and soldiers 
in these tropic lands to go without the health-giving 
vegetable food that could easily be raised in the 
outskirts of their towns and camps. Of the suf- 
ficiency of the market for the output of all the 
farms for which the Zone has space and arable soil 
there can be no doubt, for to the townspeople, the 
Canal operatives and the garrisons there will be 
added the ships which reach Colon or Balboa after 
long voyages and with larders empty of fresh green 
vegetables. 

Doubtless there will be some discussion before 
acquiescence is given to the military proposition 
that the Canal Zone — as large as the State of 
Indiana — shall be allowed to revert to jungle, be 
given over to the serpent, the sloth and the jaguar. 
That would be a sorry anti-climax to the work of 
Gorgas in banishing yellow fever and malaria, and 
of Goethals in showing how an industrial community 
could be organized, housed and fed. 




CHAPTER XVII 

PROBLEMS OF ADMINISTRATION 

"IHAT there should have been any serious 
opposition to the fortification of the Canal 
seems amazing, but the promptitude with 
which it died out seems to indicate that, while 
noisy, it had no very solid foundation in public 
sentiment. Indeed it was urged mainly by well- 
meaning theorists who condemn upon principle 
any addition to the already heavy burden which 
the need for the national defense has laid upon 
the shoulders of the people. That in theory they 
were right is undeniable. Perhaps the greatest 
anomaly of the twentieth century is the proportions 
of our preparations for war contrasted with our 
oratorical protestations of a desire for peace. But 
the inconsistencies of the United States are 
trivial in comparison with those of other nations, 
and while the whole world is armed — nominally for 
defense, but in a way to encourage aggressions — it is 
wise that the United States put bolts on its front 
gate. And that in effect is what forts and coast 
defenses are. They are not aggressive, and cannot 

405 



406 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

be a menace to any one — either to a foreign land, as a 
great navy might conceivably be, or to our people, 
as a great standing army might prove. The guns at 
Toro Point and Naos Island will never speak, save 
in ceremonial salute, unless some foreign foe men- 
aces the Canal which the United States gives freely 
to the peaceful trade of the world. But if the menace 
should be presented, it will be well not for our nation 
alone, but for all the peoples of the earth, that we are 
prepared to defend the integrity of the strait of 
which man has dreamed for more than 400' years, 
and in the creation of which thousands of useful 
lives have been sacrificed. 

Mistaken but well-meaning opponents of fortifica- 
tion have insisted that it was a violation of our pact 
with Great Britain, and a breach of international 
comity. This, however, is an error. True, in the 
Clayton-Bulwer treaty of 1850, both the United 
States and Great Britain expressly agreed not to 
fortify or assume any dominion over any part of 
Central America through which a canal might be 
dug. But that treaty was expressly abrogated by 
the Hay-Pauncefote treaty. In its first draft this 
latter treaty contained the anti-fortification clause 
and was rejected by the United States Senate for 
that very reason. In its second draft the treaty 
omitted the reference to fortifications and was rati- 
fied. Lord Lansdowne, one of the negotiators for 
the British government, explicitly said that he 



PROBLEMS OF ADMINISTRATION 407 

thoroughly understood the United States wished to 
reserve the right to fortify the Canal. 

It was so clear that no question of treaty obliga- 
tions was involved that the opponents of fortifica- 
tion early dropped that line of argument. The dis- 
cussion of the treaty in the Senate silenced them. 
They fell back upon the question of expediency. 
"Why", they asked, "go to the expense of building 
and manning fortifications and maintaining a heavy 
garrison on the Zone? Why not, through interna- 
tional agreement, make it neutral and protect it 
from seizure or blockade in time of war? Look at 
Suez"! 

This was more plausible. At first glance the 
questions seem answerable in only one way. But 
consideration weakens their force. There is a Latin 
copy-book maxim, "Inter armas silent leges" — {In 
time of war the law is silent) . It is cynically cor- 
rect. International agreements to maintain the 
integrity or neutrality of a territory last only until 
one of the parties to the agreement thinks it profit- 
able to break it. It then becomes the business of 
all the other parties to enforce the pact, and it is 
usually shown that what is everybody's business is 
nobody's business. In the event of a general war 
the Panama Canal would be kept neutral just so 
long as oiu" military and naval power could defend 
its neutrality and no longer. 

Concerning the type of fortifications now building 



4o8 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

there is little to be said. The War Department is 
not as eager for publicity as are certain other depart- 
ments of our federal administration. In November, 
19 1 2, Secretary of War Stimson made a formal state- 
ment of the general plan of defense. No change has 
been made in this plan, and it may be quoted as 
representing the general scheme as fixed upon by the 
War Department and authorized by Congress: 

"The seacoast fortifications will include 16-inch, 
14-inch and 6-inch rifles and 12-inch mortars. 
This armament will be of more powerful and effective 
types than that installed in any other locality in the 
world. At the Atlantic end of the Canal the arma- 
ment will be located on both sides of Limon Bay. 
At the Pacific end the greater part of the armament 
will be located on several small islands, Flamenco, 
Perico and Naos, which lie abreast of the terminus. 
Submarine mines will complete the seacoast arma- 
ment and will prevent actual entry into the Canal 
and harbors by hostile vessels. 

"In addition to these fortifications, and the 
necessary coast artillery and garrison to man them, 
the defensive plans provide for the erection of field 
works, and for the maintenance at all times on the 
Panama Canal Zone of a mobile force consisting 
of three regiments of infantry, at a war strength of 
nearly 2000 men for each regiment, a squadron 
of cavalry, and a battalion of field artillery. These 
latter fortifications and the mobile garrison are in- 



PROBLEMS OF ADMINISTRATION 409 

tended to repel any attacks that might be made 
by landing parties from an enemy's fleet against 
the locks and other important elements or accessories 
to the Canal. As an attack of this character might 
be coincident with or even precede an actual dec- 
laration of war, it is necessary that a force of the 
strength above outlined should be maintained on 
the Canal Zone at all times. This mobile garrison 
will furnish the necessary police force to protect 
the Zone and preserve order within its limits in 
time of peace. Congress has made the initial ap- 
propriations for the construction of these fortifica- 
tions, and they are now under construction. A 
portion of the mobile garrison is also on the Isthmus, 
and the remainder will be sent there as soon as pro- 
vision is made for its being housed". 

The most vulnerable point of the Canal is of 
course the locks. The destruction or interruption 
of the electrical machinery which operates the great 
gates would put the entire Canal out of commission. 
If in war time it should be vitally necessary to shift 
our Atlantic fleet to the Pacific, or vice versa, the 
enemy could effectively check that operation by a 
bomb dropped on the lock machinery at Gatun, 
Pedro Miguel or Miraflores. It is, however, the uni- 
versal opinion of the military experts that this 
danger is guarded against to the utmost extent 
demanded by extraordinary prudence. Against 
the miraculous, such as the presence of an aero- 



410 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

plane with an operator so skilled as to drop bombs 
upon a target of less than 40 feet square, no defense 
could fully prevail. The lock gates themselves are 
necessarily exposed and an injury to them would as 
effectually put the lock out of commission as would 
the wrecking of the controlling machinery. 

Col. Goethals has repeatedly declared his belief 
that the construction of the locks is suJfiQciently 
massive to withstand any ordinary assaults with 
explosives. No one man could carry and place 
secretly enough dynamite to wreck or even seriously 
impair the immediate usefulness of the locks. Even 
in time of peace they will be continually guarded 
and patrolled, while in time of war they will naturally 
be protected from enemies on every side and even 
in the air above. The locks are not out of range 
of a fleet in Limon Bay and a very few 13-inch 
naval shells would put them out of commission. 
But for that very reason we are building forts at 
Toro Point and its neighborhood to keep hostile 
fleets out of Limon Bay, and the United States 
navy, which has usually given a good accoimt of 
itself in time of war, will be further charged with 
this duty and will no doubt duly discharge it. 

That the locks make the Canal more vulnerable 
than a sea-level canal would have been is doubtless 
true. The fact only adds to the argimient in behalf 
of defending it by powerful forts and an adequate 
navy. 



PROBLEMS OP ADMINISTRATION 411 

The probable influence of the Panama Canal on 
commerce, on trade routes, on the commercial 
supremacy of this or that country, on the develop- 
ment of hitherto dormant lands is a question that 
opens an endless variety of speculations. Discus- 
sion of it requires so broad a knowledge of inter- 
national affairs as to be almost cosmic, a foresight 
so gifted as to be prophetic. A century from now 
the fullest results of the Canal's completion will 
not have been fully attained. This creation of a 
new waterway where a rocky barrier stood from 
the infinite past in the pathway of commerce will 
make great cities where hamlets now sit in somno- 
lence, and perhaps reduce to insignificance some of 
the present considerable ports of the world. 

Certain very common misbeliefs may be cor- 
rected with merely a word or two of explanation. 
Nothing is more common than to look upon all 
South America as a territory to be vastly benefited 
by the Canal, and brought by it nearer to our 
United States markets. A moment's thought will 
show the error of this belief. When we speak of 
South America we think first of all of the rich 
eastern coast, of the cities of Rio de Janeiro, Monte- 
video and Buenos Ayres. But it is not to this section 
that the greatest advantage will come from the 
Canal. Vessels from our Pacific coast can indeed 
carry the timber of Puget Sound, the fish of Alaska 
and the Columbia River, the fruits of California 



412 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

thither more cheaply than now, but that is but a 
sHght fraction of their trade. Nor are Brazil and 
the Argentine participators in Oriental trade to 
any great extent, though the Canal may make them 
so. The western coast of South America is chiefly 
affected by the Canal, and that to a degree rigidly 
limited by the distance of the point considered from 
the Straits of Magellan, and the size of the Canal 
tolls imposed. 

The really great material advantage which the 
United States is to derive from this monumental 
national undertaking will come from the all-water 
connection between our own Atlantic and Pacific 
coasts. A ship going from New York to San Fran- 
cisco via the Straits of Magellan traverses 14,000 
miles of sea — some of it the very most turbulent 
of all King Neptune's tossing domain. By Panama 
the same ship will have but 5000 miles to cover. 
The amazing thing is that ships are going around 
the Horn, or at least through the Straits, but the 
high rates on transcontinental railroads make even 
that protracted voyage profitable. What the Canal 
will do to transcontinental rates is a matter that is 
giving some railroad managers deep concern. It 
was in fact a consideration which led to prolonged 
and obstinate opposition to the building of any 
canal at all. Water carriage between the two 
coasts has long been a bogey to the railroad man- 
agers. When coastwise steamships on the Atlantic 




I. FLOATING ISLANDS IN GATUN LAKE. 2. THE SPILLWAY AT 
GATUN. 3. PUMPING MUD TO MAKE THE GATUN DAM 




Pliotos 2 and S by Underwood & Underwood 

I. TRAVELLING CRANE HANDLING CONCRETE. 2. BUILDING A 
CONCRETE MONOLITH. 3. CONCRETE CARRIERS AT WORK 



PROBLEMS OF ADMINISTRATION 413 

and Pacific with the Panama Railroad for a con- 
necting link offered some competition, the five 
transcontinental railways pooled together and, se- 
curing control of the Pacific Mail Steamship line 
operating between San Francisco and Panama, used 
it to cripple all competition. For a time there was 
danger that the methods then employed might be 
adopted to destroy the usefulness of the Panama 
Canal, and it was to guard against this that Con- 
gress adopted the law denying the use of the Canal 
to vessels owned by railroad companies. 

The question of the tolls to be charged for passage 
through the Canal is one that has evoked a some- 
what acrimonious discussion, the end of which is 
not yet. About the amount of the toll there was 
little dispute. It was determined by taking the 
cost of maintenance of the Canal, which is estimated 
at about $4,000,000 annually, and the interest on 
its cost, about $10,000,000 a year, and comparing 
the total with the amount of tonnage which might 
reasonably be expected to pass through annually. 
Prof. Emory R. Johnson, the government expert 
upon whose figures are based all estimates concern- 
ing canal revenues, fixed the probable tonnage of 
the Canal for the first year at 10,500,000 tons, with 
an increase at the end of the first decade of opera- 
tion to 17,000,000, and at the end of the second 
decade to 27,000,000 tons. The annual expenses 
of the Canal, including interest, approximates 



414 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

$14,000,000, and Congress has accordingly fixed the 
tolls at $1.20 a ton for freight and $1.50 per passenger. 
It is anticipated that these figures will cause a 
deficit in the first two or three years of operation, 
but that the growth of commerce through the Canal 
will speedily make it up. 

In legislating upon the question of tolls Congress 
opened an international question which has been 
fiercely debated and which remains a subject of 
diplomatic negotiation between our State De- 
partment and the British Foreign Office. This was 
done by the section of the law which granted to 
American-built ships engaged in the coasting trade 
the right to use the Canal without the payment 
of any tolls whatsoever. At the time of its appear- 
ance in Congress this proposition attracted Httle 
attention and evoked no discussion. It seemed to 
be a perfectly obvious and entirely justifiable em- 
ployment of the Canal for the encouragement of 
American shipping. The United States had bought 
the territory through which the Canal extended 
and was paying every dollar of the cost of the great 
work. What could be more natural than that it 
shoiild concede to American shipping owners, who 
had borne their share of the taxation which the 
cost of the Canal necessitated, the right of free 
passage through it? 

Nobody, however, at the time of the passage of 
the act regulating tolls thought it had any par- 



PROBLEMS OF ADMINISTRATION 415 

ticular international significance. Its signature by 
the President was taken as a matter of course and 
it was not until some time afterward that the 
Ambassador of Great Britain presented his coun- 
try's claim that the exemption clause was in viola- 
tion of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty. The section of 
that treaty which it is claimed is violated reads 
thus : 

"The Canal shall be free and open to the vessels 
of commerce and of war of all nations observing 
these rules on terms of entire equality, so that there 
shall be no discrimination against any such nation, 
or its citizens or subjects, in respect of the condi- 
tions or changes of traffic". 

The outcry against the exemption clause soon 
became very vociferous. It is said to have been 
fomented largely by the Canadian railroads, or per- 
sons interested in them. They saw possible profit 
in running ships from Montreal or Quebec, to 
Vancouver or Victoria, touching at various United 
States ports en route. Such a voyage would not 
constitute a "coastwise passage" under our laws, 
and foreign vessels might engage in such traffic. 
But they saw that the exemption in tolls by which a 
United States vessel of 12,000 tons would escape 
Canal tolls amounting to $15,000 would put them at 
a serious disadvantage. Hence they appealed to 
Great Britain and the protest followed. Without 
actually expressing this as a real reason for its protest, 



4i6 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

the British government urges that the United 
States should properly regulate its tolls to meet the 
needs of the Canal for revenue, and that if the 
coastwise shipping be exempted there will be a loss 
of some millions of dollars in revenue which will 
compel the imposition of higher tolls on other ship- 
ping. It is urged also on behalf of the protestants 
that the word "coastwise" is capable of various 
constructions and that a vessel plying between New 
York and Los Angeles might be held not to have 
sacrificed her coastwise register if she continued her 
voyage to Yokohama or Hong Kong. 

American public men and the American press 
are radically divided on the question. A majority, 
perhaps, are inclined to thrust it aside with a mere 
declaration of our power in the matter. "We built 
the Canal and paid for it", they say, "and our ships 
have the same rights in it that they have in the 
Hudson River or the canal at the Soo. Besides the 
British cannot engage in our coasting trade anyway, 
and what we do to help our coastwise ships con- 
cerns no one but us". Which seems a pretty fair 
and reasonable statement of the case until the op- 
ponents of the exemption clause put in their re- 
joinder. "Read the treaty", they say. "It is per- 
fectly clear in its agreement that the United States 
should not do this thing it proposes to do. Trea- 
ties are, by the Constitution, the supreme law of the 
land. To violate one is to violate our national 



PROBLEMS OF ADMINISTRATION 417 

honor. It would be disgraceful to let the word go 
out to all the world that the United States entered 
into sacred obligations by treaty and repudiated 
them the moment their fulfilment proved galling. 
The protected shipyards, the already subsidized 
coastwise steamship companies, are asking for more 
gratuities at the cost of our national honor. What 
is the use of reestablishing on the high seas a flag 
which all peoples may point out as the emblem of 
a dishonorable state"? 

So rests the argument. The advocates of the 
remission of tolls to the coastwise ships of the 
United States have the best of the position, since 
their contention is already enacted into law, but 
the opposing forces are vigorously urging the repeal 
of the law. Congress will of course be the final 
arbiter, and as the Canal cannot be opened to com- 
merce before 191 5 there is ample time for delibera- 
tion and just judgment. 

The fundamental principle controlling the amount 
of the tolls is to fix them at such a figure as to 
minimize the competition of Suez. Commerce pro- 
ceeds by the cheapest route. Some slight advan- 
tage may accrue to the Panama route if the govern- 
ment can make such contracts with American mines 
as to be able to furnish coal at the Isthmus at a 
price materially less than is charged at Suez. The 
estimates, supplied by Prof. Johnson, of probable 
commerce have been based on a price for coal at 



4i8 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

Cristobal or Colon of $5 a ton and at Balboa of 
$5.50 a ton. At the time the prices for coal at 
Port Said on the Suez Canal were from $6.20 to 
$6.32 a ton. This, plus cheaper tolls, will give 
Panama a great advantage over Suez. 

The first immediate and direct profit accruing to 
the people of the United States from the Canal will 
come from the quick, short and cheap communica- 
tion it will afford between the eastern and western 
coasts of the United States. People who think of 
passenger schedules when they speak of communi- 
cation between distant cities will doubtless be sur- 
prised to learn that on freight an average of two 
weeks will be saved by the Canal route between 
New York and San Francisco. The saving in money, 
even should the railroads materially reduce their 
present transcontinental rates, will be even more 
striking. Even now for many classes of freights 
there is a profit in shipping by way of the Straits 
of Magellan — a distance of 13,135 miles. By 
Panama the distance between New York and San 
Francisco is but 5262 miles, a saving of 7873 miles 
or about the distance across the Atlantic and back. 
From New Orleans to San Francisco will be but 
8868 miles. Today there is little or no water com- 
munication between the two cities and their tribu- 
tary territory. At least one month's steaming will 
be saved by 12-knot vessels going through the 
Panama Canal over those making the voyage by 



PROBLEMS OF ADMINISTRATION 419 

way of the Straits of Magellan. A general idea of 
the saving in distance between points likely to be 
affected by the Canal is given by the table prepared 
by Hon. John Barrett, Director General of the Pan- 
American Union and published on page 420, 42 1 . 

But it is Latin America that has reason to look 
forward with the utmost avidity to the results that 
will follow the opening of the Canal. For the people 
of that little developed and still mysterious coast 
line reaching from the United States- Mexico boun- 
dary, as far south at least as Valparaiso, the United 
States has prepared a gift of incalculable richness. 
Our share in the benefit will come in increased trade, 
if oiir merchants seize upon the opportunity offered. 

From Liverpool to Valparaiso today is 8747 miles 
and from New York 8380. But when the ships go 
through the Canal the English vessels will save 
little. For them the run will be reduced to 7207 
miles, while from New York the distance will be 
cut to 4633. With such a handicap in their favor 
New York shippers should control the commerce of 
Pacific South America north of Valparaiso, Guaya- 
quil, in Ecuador, will be but 2232 miles from New 
Orleans; it has been 10,631. Callao, with all Peru 
at its back, will be 3363 miles from New York, 2784 
from New Orleans. In every instance the saving 
of distance by the Panama route is more to the ad- 
vantage of the United States than of Great Britain. 
Today the lion's share of the commerce of the 



420 



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422 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

South American countries goes to England or to 
Germany. 

North of the Canal are the Central American 
countries of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Sal- 
vador, Guatemala and Mexico. On their Gulf 
coasts harbors are infrequent and poor, but on the 
Pacific plentiful. Their territory is as yet little 
developed, but with few manufacturers of their own 
they offer a still undeveloped market for ours. In 
all, the twelve Latin American countries bordering 
on the Pacific have an area of over 2,500,000 square 
miles, or about that of the United States exclusive 
of Alaska and its insular possessions. They have 
a population of 37,000,000 and their foreign trade 
is estimated at $740,000,000. In this trade the 
United States is at the present time a sharer to the 
extent of $277,000,000 or about 37 per cent. With 
the Canal in operation it is believed that the total 
commerce will be doubled and the share of the 
United States raised to 50 per cent. 

So far as Asiatic traffic is concerned, there is 
almost sure to be some overlapping of routes. 
Conditions other than those of time and space will 
occasionally control shipmasters in the choice of a 
route. But so far as the trade of our Atlantic ports • 
with Hongkong, the Philippines and points north 
and east thereof is concerned it will all go through 
Panama. So, too, with the vessels from English, 
French or German ports. If the contemplated 




ij --i It iililii \iiii ru nil 

PROPORTIONS OF SOME OF THE CANAL WORK 
Upper pyramid shows what "spoil" from the Culebra Cut would do. 
Lower picture shows what "spoil" from the whole canal would make. 




Photo S by Underwood <& Underwood 
I. A BLAST IN THE OPEN. 2. A SUBMARINE BLAST. 
BLAST AT CI'LERRA 



3. SIDE 



PROBLEMS OF ADMINISTRATION 423 

economies offered by the price of coal and fuel 
oil at Balboa are effected, the inducements of 
this route will divert from Suez all European 
shipping bound for Asiatic ports north of 
India. A careful study of the Suez Canal shows 
that the trade of the United States with all foreign 
countries made up 33 per cent of the total trafSc, 
and the commerce of Europe with the west coast 
of South America comprised 38 per cent. Prof. 
Johnson compiled for the benefit of the Commission 
a table giving his estimate of the amount of shipping 
that actually will use the Canal in 191 5 and there- 
after. As the expression of official opinion based 
upon the most careful research, this table is here 
republished. 



CLASSIFICATION OP ESTIMATED NET TONNAGE OF 

SHIPPING USING THE PANAMA CANAL 

IN 1915, 1920 AND 1925 





Average 
per annum 
during 1915 

and 1916 


1920 


1925 


Coast-to-coast American 
shiooine 


1,000,000 
720,000 

8,780,000 


1,414,000 
910,000 

11,020,000 


2,000,000 


American shippmg carrymg 
foreign commerce of the 
United States 


1,500,000 


Foreign shipping carrying 
commerce of the United 
States and foreign coun- 
tries 


13,850,000 






Total 


10,500,000 


13,344,000 


17,000,000 







424 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

After all, however, the most patient investigation 
of the past and the most careful and scientific 
calculations of the probabilities of the future may 
produce a wholly inaccurate result. The real effect 
of the Canal on the world's commerce may be some- 
thing wholly different from what the experts expect. 
But we may proceed upon the well-established fact 
that no new route of swifter and cheaper transporta- 
tion ever failed to create a great business, and to 
develop thriving communities along its route. This 
fact finds illustration in the building up of the suburbs 
and back country by the development of trolley lines, 
and, on a larger scale, the prodigious growth of our 
Pacific coast after the transcontinental railroads had 
fought their way to every corner of that empire still 
in the making. Much is imcertain about what the 
Panama Canal will do for the expansion of oui trade 
and influence, but the one thing that is certain is 
that no sane man is likely to put the figures of in- 
crease and extension too high. 

More and more the exports of the United States 
are taking the form of manufactured goods. The 
old times when we were the granary of the world 
are passing aATay and the moment is not far distant 
when we shall produce barely enough for our rapidly 
increasing population. British Columbia is taking 
up the task of feeding the world where we are 
dropping it. On the other hand, our manufacturing 
industry is progressing with giant strides and, while 



PROBLEMS OF ADMINISTRATION 425 

a few years ago our manufacturers were content 
with their rigidly protected home market, they are 
now reaching out for the markets of foreign lands. 
Figures just issued show that in 10 years our exports 
of manufactured goods have increased 70 per cent. 
The possibilities of the Asiatic market, which the 
Canal brings so much more closely to oiu- doors, are 
almost incalculable. For cotton goods alone China 
and India will afford a market vastly exceeding any 
which is now open to our cotton mills, and if, as 
many hold, the Chinese shall themselves take up 
the manufacture of the fleecy staple they will have 
to turn to New England and Pennsylvania for their 
machinery and to our cotton belt of states for the 
material. The ships from Charleston, Savannah, 
New Orleans and Galveston, which so long steamed 
eastward with their cargoes of cotton, will in a few 
years turn their prows toward the setting sun. 
Indeed these southern ports should be among the 
first to feel the stimulating effect of the new markets. 
Southern tobacco, lumber, iron and coal will find 
a new outlet, and freight which has been going to 
Atlantic ports will go to the Gulf — the front door 
to the Canal. 

Foreign ships, no less than foreign banks and the 
excellence of foreign commercial schools, are and 
will continue to be a factor in the building up of 
foreign trade via the Canal. Just as the German 
banks report to their home commercial organiza- 



426 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

tions the transactions of other countries in lands 
whose trade is sought, so foreign ships naturally 
work for the advantage of the country v/hose flag 
they fly. Surprising as it may seem to many, and 
disappointing as it must be to all, it is the unfor- 
tunate fact that within a year of the time set for 
opening the Panama Canal to commerce there is 
not the slightest evidence that that great work is 
going to have any influence whatsoever toward the 
creation of a United States fleet in foreign trade. 
England, Germany, Italy and Japan are all establish- 
ing new lines, the last three with the aid of heavy 
subsidies. But in April, 19 13, a recognized authority 
on the American merchant marine published this 
statement: "So far as international commerce via 
Panama is concerned not one new keel is being laid 
in the United States and not one new ship has even 
been projected. The Panama Canal act of last 
August reversed our former policy and granted free 
American registry to foreign-built ships for inter- 
national commerce through the Panama Canal or 
elsewhere. But this 'free ship* policy has utterly 
failed. Not one foreign ship has hoisted the 
American flag, not one request for the flag has 
reached the Bureau of Navigation". 

The reason for this is the archaic condition of our 
navigation laws. The first cost of a ship, even 
though somewhat greater when built in American 
yards, becomes a negligible factor in comparison 



PROBLEMS 0F_ ADMINISTRATION 427 

with a law which makes every expense incurred in 
operating it 10 to 20 per cent higher than like 
charges on foreign vessels. James J. Hill, the great 
railroad builder, who planned a line of steamships 
to the Orient and built the two greatest ships that 
ever came from an American yard, said once to 
the writer, "I can build ships in the United States 
as advantageously as on the Clyde and operate 
them without a subsidy. But neither I nor any 
other man can maintain a line of American ships 
at a profit while the navigation laws put us at a 
disadvantage in competition with those of every 
other nation". Those mainly responsible for the 
enactment and maintenance of the navigation laws 
declare them to be essential to secure proper wages 
and treatment of the American sailor, but the effect 
has been to deprive the sailor of the ships necessary 
to earn his livelihood. 

One problem opened by the Panama Canal which 
seldom suggests itself to the merely casual mind is 
the one involved in keeping it clear of the infectious 
and epidemic diseases for which Asiatic and tropical 
ports have a sinister reputation. The opening of 
the Suez Canal was followed by new danger from 
plague, cholera and yellow fever in Mediterranean 
countries. A like situation may arise at Panama. 

Preparations are being made to make Balboa a 
quarantine station of world-wide importance. The 
mere proximity of the date for opening the Canal 



428 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

has caused discussion of its effect upon the health of 
civihzed nations. At Suez an International Board 
exists for the purpose of so guarding that gateway 
from the East that none of the pestilences for which 
the Orient has an ill fame can slip through. No 
suggestion has been made of international control at 
Panama. In fact such of the foreign articles as 
have come under my eye have been flattering to us 
as a nation, asserting, as they all do, that in sanitary 
science the United States is so far ahead that the 
quarantine service may be safely entrusted to this 
nation alone. Despite this cheerful optimism of 
Europe, there has not yet been a very prompt acqui- 
escence by Congress in the estimates presented by 
Col. Gorgas for the permanent housing and mainte- 
nance of the quarantine service. Since the United 
States is to give the Canal to the world, it should so 
equip the gift that it will not be a menace to the 
world's health. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

DIPLOMACY AND POLITICS OF THE 
CANAL 

HAVING built the Panama Canal at a heavy 
cost of treasure and no light cost of life, having 
subdued to our will the greatest forces of 
nature and put a curb upon the malevolent powers 
of tropical miasma and infection, we are about to 
give the completed result to the whole world. It 
stands as a free gift, for never can any tolls that will 
be imposed make of it a commercial success. It 
was the failure to recognize this inevitable fact that 
made it impossible for the French to complete the 
task. It will be a national asset, not because of the 
income gathered at its two entrances, but because 
of the cheapening of freight rates between our two 
coasts and the consequent reduction of prices to our 
citizens. But this advantage will accrue to peoples 
who have not paid a dollar of taxation toward the 
construction of the Canal. There is absolutely no 
advantage which the Canal may present to the 
people of New England that will not be shared 
equally by the people of the Canadian provinces of 
Quebec and Ontario if they desire to avail them- 
selves of the opportunity. Our gulf ports of Mobile, 

429 



430 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

New Orleans and Galveston expect, and reasonably 
so, that the volume of their traffic will be greatly 
increased by the opening of the Canal, But if Rio 
de Janeiro, Buenos Ayres and Montevideo have 
products they desire to ship to the Orient or to the 
western coast of their own continent of South Amer- 
ica the Canal is open to them as freely as to our 
ships. 

Having given to the world so great a benefaction, 
it will be the part of the international statesmen of 
the United States, the diplomatists, to see to it that 
the gift is not distorted, nor, through any act of 
ours, divided unequally among those sharing in it. 
Upon the diplomacy of the United States the opening 
of the Canal will impose many new burdens and re- 
sponsibilities. 

Scarcely any general European war involved more 
intricate and delicate questions of the reciprocal 
rights of nations than did the acquisition of the 
Suez Canal by Great Britain. Volumes have been 
written on the subject of the diplomacy of Suez. 
The Constantinople conference called for the dis- 
cussion of that topic, and the specific delimitation 
of the authority of Great Britain and the rights of 
other maritime nations was one of the most notable 
gatherings in the history of diplomacy. The Pan- 
ama waterway will bring new problems and intensify 
old ones for the consideration of our statesmen. 
The Monroe Doctrine is likely to come in for a very 



DIPLOMACY AND POLITICS 431 

thorough testing and perhaps a new formulation. 
The precise scope of that doctrine has of late years 
become somewhat ill dejfined. Foreign nations say 
that the tendency of the United States is to extend 
its powers and ignore its responsibilities under this 
theory. In Latin America, where that doctrine 
should be hailed as a bulwark of protection, it is 
looked upon askance. That feeling is largely due to 
the attitude of this country toward the Republic 
of Colombia at the time of the secession of 
Panama. 

A problem of the highest importance to the credit 
of the United States in Latin America, which should 
be settled in accordance with principles of national 
honor and international equity, is the determination 
of what reparation we owe the Republic of Colombia 
for our part in the revolution which made 
Panama an independent state and gave us the 
Canal Zone. 

In an earlier chapter I have tried to tell, without 
bias, the story of that revolution and to leave to 
the readers' own judgment the question whether 
oiu" part in it was that merely of an innocent by- 
stander, a neutral looker-on, or whether we did not, 
by methods of indirection at least, make it impossible 
for Colombia to employ her own troops for the 
suppression of rebellion in her own territory. As 
President, and later as private citizen, Mr. Roosevelt 
was always exceedingly insistent that he .had ad' 



432 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

hered to the strictest letter of the neutrahty law — ■ 
always, that is, except in that one impetuous speech 
in San Francisco, in which he blurted out the 
boast, "I took Panama, and left Congress to debate 
about it afterward". 

Mr. Roosevelt's protestations of innocence had, 
however, little effect upon his own friends and party 
associates, for early in the Taft administration the 
conviction became general among men in high 
station that reparation of some sort was due to Co- 
lombia for what was — to express it guardedly — our 
connivance at a conspiracy that cost that repub- 
lic its richest province — cost it further a lump 
payment of $10,000,000 and an annual sum of 
$250,000 to eternity. The records of diplomacy are 
enmeshed in many concealing veils, but enough is 
known of the progress of the negotiations to reflect 
credit upon the diplomacy of Colombia. That 
country has neither threatened nor blustered — and 
the undeniable fact that the comparative power of 
Colombia and the United States would make threats 
and bluster ridiculous would not ordinarily deter a 
Latin-American President from shrieking shrill de- 
fiance at least for the benefit of his compatriots. 
Colombia has been persistent but not petulant. 
It has stated its case to two administrations and has 
wrung from both the confession that the United 
States in that revolution acted the part of an inter- 
national bandit. Out of the recesses of the Depart- 



DIPLOMACY AND POLITICS 433 

ment of State has leaked the information that the 
United States has made to Colombia a tentative 
offer of $10,000,000, but that it had been refused. 
But the offer itself was a complete confession on the 
part of the United States of its guilt in the transac- 
tion complained of. Naturally, Colombia declined 
the proffered conscience money. Panama received 
from the United States not merely $10,000,000, but 
will get $250,000 a year for an indefinite period. 
All this Colombia lost and her valuable province 
as well because the captain of a United States man- 
of-war would not let the Colombian colonels on 
that day of revolution use force to compel a 
railroad manager to carry their troops across the 
Isthmus. The grievance of the Colombians is a 
very real and seemingly just one. 

We hear much of the national honor in reference 
to canal tolls but less of it in relation to this contro- 
versy with Colombia. Yet that controversy ought 
to be settled and settled justly. It is inconceivable, 
of course, that it should be determined by restoring 
the status as it existed before that day of opera- 
bouffe revolution. Our investment in the Canal 
Zone, our duty to the world which awaits the open- 
ing of the Canal, and our loyalty to our partner in 
crime, Panama, alike make that impossible. The 
Republic of Panama is an accomplished fact not 
to be obliterated even in the interest of precise 
justice. As the Persian poet put it : 



434 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

"The moving finger writes, and having writ 
Moves on; nor all your piety nor wit, 

Shall lure it back to cancel half a line, 

Nor all your tears wash out one word of it". 

President Roosevelt wrote the word Panama on 
the list of nations and moved on vastly pleased with 
the record. 

The situation at the same time is one not to be 
lightly dealt with. Among the Latin Americans there 
is a very general feeling that our devotion to the Mon- 
roe Doctrine is indicative only of our purpose to protect 
our neighbors against any selfish aggressions except 
our own. It is of the very highest importance that 
this feeling be dissipated, and there is perhaps no 
more immediate way of beginning that task than by 
reaching such an agreement with Colombia as shall 
indicate to other South American governments our 
purpose of doing exact justice among our neighbors, 
be they great and powerful or small and weak. 

With all the South American countries the com- 
merce of the Canal will tend to bring us into closer 
relations. It is known that the great beef pack- 
ers of Chicago have considerable plants in the 
Argentine ; that a famous iron manufacturer 
of Pittsburgh has in Chile what is believed to 
be the largest iron mine in the world; that the 
Standard Oil Company has its agencies throughout 
the continent; and the Du Pont Powder Company 
besides maintaining two nitrate plants in Chile does 



DIPLOMACY AND POLITICS 435 

a prodigious business in explosives with the various 
states — and not mainly for military purposes only. 
The United States Steel Company has a vanadium 
mine in Peru where 3000 Americans are working. 
The equipment of street railways and electric- 
lighting plants in South American cities is almost 
wholly of American manufacture. Even without 
the systematic encouragement of their home govern- 
ment, American business men have begun to make 
inroads upon German and English commercial power 
in South America, and the opening of the Canal will 
increase their activities. Today our Pacific coast 
is practically shut off from any interchange of com- 
modities with Brazil and the Argentine; with the 
Canal open a direct waterway will undoubtedly 
stimulate a considerable trade. The more trade is 
stimulated, the more general travel becomes between 
nations, the less becomes the danger of war. 
There is no inconsistency in the statement that the 
Canal will become a powerful factor in the world's 
peace, even though it does necessitate the main- 
tenance of a bigger navy and the erection of powerful 
forts for its defense in the improbable event of war. 
This is but one phase of the influence the Canal 
will exercise upon countries other than the United 
States. What it will do for the Latin- American 
countries immediately adjacent to Panama in the 
direction of leading them to establish improved 
sanitation systems, or to perfect those they now 



436 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

maintain, is beyond present estimate. Many such 
governments have had their representatives on the 
Zone to study the methods there in force, and v/hile 
the present writer was there Col. Gorgas was be- 
sought to visit Guayaquil to give its rulers expert 
advice on the correction of the unsanitary state of 
that city. Members of the staff of Col. Gorgas are 
in demand as experts in all parts of the world. I 
know of one who in the last days of the Canal con- 
struction was sent by the German government to 
establish in some of the German South African 
provinces the methods that brought health to the 
Isthmus after the days of the futile French struggle 
with fever and malaria. 

It is because of this influence upon foreign peoples, 
already apparent, that far-sighted people find in- 
tolerable the proposition to let the Canal Zone grow 
up into jungle and return to its original state of 
savagery. It .can and should be made an object 
lesson to the world. From every ship that makes 
the ten-hour passage of the Canal some passengers 
will go ashore for rest from the long voyage and to 
see what the Zone may have to show them. Are 
we content to have them see only the hovels of 
Colon and the languid streets of Panama — exhibits 
that give no idea of the force, the imagination, the 
idealism that gave being to the Canal ? Today the 
Zone is a little bit of typical United States life set 
down in the tropics. So it might remain if due 



DIPLOMACY AND POLITICS 437 

encouragement were given to industrious settlers. 
There is not so much land in the world that this 
need be wasted, nor have there been so many- 
examples of the successful creation and continuance 
of such a community as the Zone has been as to 
justify its obliteration before the world has grasped 
its greatest significance. 

After considering the problem of what the Canal 
will be worth, let us reverse the ordinary process and 
figure out what it will cost. Exact statement is 
still impossible, for as this book is being printed the 
Canal is months away from being usable and probably 
two years short of completion if we reckon terminals 
and fortifications as part of the completed work. 

In an earlier chapter I have set forth some of the 
estimates of its cost from the figure of $131,000,000 
set by the volatile De Lesseps to the $375,000,000 of 
the better informed and more judicious Goethals. 
In June, 1913, however, we had at hand the official 
report of all expenditures to March, 19 13, duly 
classified as follows. 

It will be observed that since the beginning of 
the fiscal year 191 3, expenditures have averaged a 
trifle over $3,000,000 a month. This rate of expendi- 
ture may be expected to decrease somewhat during 
the eighteen months likely to elapse before the 
Canal, terminals and forts are completed. Probably 
if we allow $250,000 a month for this decrease we 
will be near the mark making the future expenditures 



438 



PANAMA AND THE CANAL 



average $2,750,000 monthly until January, 1915, 
making in all $57,750,000. Adding this to the 
Commission expenditures up to March 31, 1913, 
and adding further the $50,000,000 paid to the 
French stockholders and the Republic of Panama we 

CLASSIFIED EXPENDITURES— 

A statement of classified expenditures of the Isthmian 



Periods 


Department 

of Civil 

Administration 


Depart- 
ment of 
Law 


Department 

of 
Sanitation 


Total to June 30, 1909. 


$3,427,090.29 

709,351.37 

755,079.44 

820,398.57 

63,913.12 

62,182.51 

59,201.01 

64,383.37 

62,200.12 

58,987.96 

57,699.58 

56,586.06 

58,761.03 




$9,673,539.28 
1,803,040.95 


Total— Fiscal Year, 1910 




Total— Fiscal Year, 1911 




1,717,792.62 


Total— Fiscal Year, 1912 
July, 1912 


$24,729.16 
1,448.53 
1,468.26 
1,207.82 
2,033.75 
1,892.14 
1,462.18 
1,469.59 
1,649.00 
1,899.22 


1,620,391.12 
123,803.64 
123,154.48 
120,385.70 
137,574.61 


August, 1912 

September, 1912 

October, 1912 


November, 1912 

December, 1912 

January, 1913 


119,031.66 
115,819.26 
114,562.04 
127,324.80 


February, 1913 


March, 1913 


105,891.08 






Grand total 


$6,255,834.43 


$39,259.65 


$15,902,311.24 



reach the sum of $396,863,593 — a reasonable esti- 
mate of the final cost of the great world enterprise; 
the measure in dollars and cents of the greatest gift 
ever made by a single nation to the world. 

It is worth noting that all this colossal expenditure 
of money has been made without any evidence of 
graft, and practically without charge of that all- 
pervading canker in American public work. During 



DIPLOMACY AND POLITICS 



439 



a long stay on the Isthmus, associating constantly 
with men in every grade of the Commission's service, 
I never heard a definite charge of illegal profits being 
taken by anyone concerned in the work. In certain 
publications dealing with the undertaking in its 

ISTHMIAN CANAL COMMISSION 

Canal Commission to March 31, 1913, follows: 



Department of 

Construction 

and Engineering 


General Items 


Fortifications 


Total 


$69,622,561.42 


$78,022,606.10 

2,863,088.83 

3,097,959.72 

2,819,926.53 

200,970.55 

*98,054.61 

77,003.53 

83,523.30 

75,779.01 

120,946.61 

6,463.72 

123,034.12 

*7,706.70 




$160,745,797.09 


26,300,167.05 




31,675,648.20 


27,477,776.19 




33,048,607.97 


28,897,738.10 
2,649,246.61 
2,539,680.83 
2,285,979.89 
2,473,280.76 
2,420,085.77 
2,871,977.03 
2,825,872.06 
3,784,370.51 
2,712,218.10 


$1,212,881.66 
104,126.92 
111,402.55 
127,168.25 
129,736.37 
300,016.33 
118,152.57 
119,272.77 
314,994.96 
131,940.75 


35,396,065.14 
3,143,509.37 
2,739,834.02 
2,670,946.20 
2,890,532.16 
2,979,005.03 
3,287,345.61 
3,125,339.76 
4,407,959.45 
3,003,003.48 


$176,860,954.32 


$87,385,540.71 


$2,669,693.13 


$289,113,593.48 



*Denotes credit. 

earlier days one will find assertions of underhanded 
collusion with contractors and of official raids upon 
the more select importations of the Commissary 
without due payment therefor. But even these 
charges were vague, resting only on hearsay, and 
had to do with an administration which vanished 
six or more years ago. Today that chronic libeler 



440 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

"the man in the street" has nothing to say about 
graft in connection with Canal contracts, and 
"common notoriety", which usually upholds all 
sorts of scandalous imputations, and is cited to 
maintain various vague allegations, is decidedly on 
the side of official integrity at Panama. 

Whatever may be the influence of the Canal on 
the position of the United States as a world power, 
its influence on the industrial life at home is likely 
to be all pervasive and revolutionary. The govern- 
ment is the largest employer of labor in the land. 
It ought to be the best employer. On the Zone 
it has been the best employer, and has secured the 
best results. When government work is to be done 
hereafter it will not be let out to private con- 
tractors without hesitation and discussion. 

If the system and conditions of employment that 
have existed in Panama could be applied to public 
service in all other parts of the United States, the 
condition of all labor, all industry, all professional 
service would be correspondingly improved. For 
with the most extensive employer setting the pace 
all others would have to keep step with it. 

When the long account comes to be balanced we 
may find that the United States will owe quite as 
much to the Panama enterprise on the moral as on 
the material side. Of course it is going to increase 
our trade both foreign and domestic — that, as the 
French say, goes without saying. It will cheapen 



DIPLOMACY AND POLITICS 441 

the cost of building cottages in New York suburbs, 
because lumber will be brought from the forests of 
Oregon and Washington for half the freight cost now 
exacted. It will stimulate every manufacturing 
interest on the Pacific coast, for coal from West 
Virginia will be laid down there at dollars per ton 
less than now. The men who catch and can salmon 
in the rushing waters of the Columbia, the men who 
raise and pack the luscious oranges of southern 
California will have a new and cheaper way of carry- 
ing their products to the eager markets of the great 
cities along the Atlantic coast. At the same time 
the output of our eastern steel mills and New Eng- 
land cotton and woolen factories will find a more 
expeditious and cheaper route to the builders and 
workers of the Pacific coast. 

Incidentally the labors of the Interstate Commerce 
Commission are likely to be multiplied almost in- 
calculably. For it must be accepted as a fact that 
free competition is no longer a complete regulator 
of freight rates whether by rail or by water. Any 
one can charter a ship and send it through the Canal 
with the same rights and privileges that a long estab- 
lished line will enjoy. But not every independent 
ship can find dockage facilities at both ends of its 
voyage, although it is true that the enterprising 
cities of the Pacific coast are warding off monopoly 
by building municipal docks. -Moreover, the owner 
of the independent ship will have his troubles in 



442 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

getting the railroads at either end to handle his 
cargoes and distribute them at such charges as will 
leave him any profit. Indeed the independent ship 
will be but little of a factor in fixing rates. That 
will be done by the regular lines. Normally there 
should be keen competition between the railroads 
and the steamships with a very marked drop in 
rates. But it will not be well to base too great hopes 
on this possibility. Transportation rates, even 
where there is nominally free competition, are not 
often based wholly on the cost of the service. 
What the traffic will bear is more often the chief 
factor in rate making. Because ships can carry 
freight from New York to San Francisco for three 
dollars a traffic-ton less than the railroads does not 
imply that they will do so. Nor does it ensure that 
railroad rates will drop spasmodically in a vain 
effort to keep all the business away from the ships. 
Rather is it probable that certain classes of freight 
like lumber, coal and ore will be left wholly to the 
ships, and some form of agreement as to the essen- 
tials of the general rate card will be arrived at. It 
is this agreement, which in some form or other is 
sure to come, that will engage the attention of the 
Interstate Commerce Commission, arouse its cease- 
less vigilance and probably necessitate a material 
extension of its authority. 

In other than material ways the nation will largely 
profit. I think that the fact of the canal's having 




^ 



■J 

THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS 
RELIEF MAP OP THE CANAL ZONE. 





1. TUG Gaiun making first passage ok the locks. 

SEPTEMBER 26, 1913. 2. CULEBRA CUT, LOOKING NORTH 
FROM WEST BANK 



DIPLOMACY AND POLITICS 443 

been built by army engineers will go far toward cor- 
recting a certain hostility toward the army which 
is common in American thought. The completed 
canal proves that the organization of the army, the 
education of its officers, is worth something in peace 
as well as in war. Of course this has been shown 
before in countless public works scattered over the 
land, but never hitherto in a fashion to command 
such attention and to compel such plaudits. There 
were five colonels, besides "The Colonel," on the 
commission which put the big job through, and I do 
not believe that the most shrinking civilian who 
visited the Canal Zone on either business or pleasure 
found any ground to complain of militarism, or was 
overawed by any display of "fuss and feathers." 

The Canal Zone was, of course, a rural community 
harboring about 65,000, scattered along a railroad 
47 miles long. Yet in the story of its government 
there is much that is instructive to the rulers of our 
American cities. Every head of the health depart- 
ment in one of our home towns would profit by a 
study of Col. Gorgas's methods in dealing with the 
problems of dirt, sewage and infection. Indeed, 
many of the ideas he developed are already being 
adapted to the needs of North American munici- 
palities. It is becoming quite evident, for example, 
that the scientific method of controlling insect pests 
by destroying their breeding places is the only effi- 
cient one. The larvacide man in the waste places, 



444 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

or the covered garbage can and screened stable are 
not as melodramatic as newspaper shouts of "Swat 
the fly!" but they accomplish more in the end. 

The distinctly personal government of the Zone 
by Col. Goethals, and the admirable order he main- 
tained there among a heterogeneous and many- 
tongued foreign population inspired widespread ad- 
miration, and impelled the mayor of Greater New 
York to urge the colonel to accept the post of police 
commissioner of that city. The New York police 
force has been at times vitiated by graft, undermined 
by political intrigue, a spectacle of inefflciency. 
Under Goethals there was no graft on the Canal 
Zone, personal influence and political intrigue wer-e 
sternly suppressed and the standard of efficiency 
was of the highest. Therefore, argued the mayor, 
Col. Goethals is the best man to reform the New 
York police. The colonel looked on the invitation 
as a trumpet call to duty. Just as it came the 
President appointed him the first governor of the 
Canal Zone, the reorganization of that province 
under the Adamson Act being set for April i, 19 14. 
Col. Goethals has accepted the governorship, but 
is said to have agreed to relinquish it after the canal 
is in full working operation, and then to take up 
the New York problem. Should he persist in this 
determination, his course and its results will be 
watched with the utmost interest. On the Zone he 
had absolute power, not only over his subordinates' 



DIPLOMACY AND POLITICS 445 

livelihood, but even over their place of residence. 
A mutinous man could not only be discharged, but 
ejected from his house, and exiled from the Zone. 
The colonel fell little short of the power to say to 
such an one: "Get off the earth!" Of course no 
such autocratic power is vested in the New York 
police commissioner, the precedents hedging him 
about are endless, and the spirit of intrigue in the 
force is the solid growth of half a century and almost 
ineradicable. The colonel's tussle with it will be 
worth watching. 

The management of the Panama Railroad by 
and for the government affords an object lesson 
that will be cited when we come to open Alaska. 
Though overcapitalized in the time of its private 
ownership and operation, the railroad, under Col. 
Goethals, has paid a substantial profit. Though 
rushed with the traffic incident to the canal con- 
struction, it has successfully dealt with its commer- 
cial business, and has offered in many ways a true 
example of successful railway management. 

But to my mind more important than any other 
outcome of the Canal work is its complete demon- 
stration of the ability of the United States to do its 
own work for its own people efficiently, successfully 
and honestly. That is an exhibit that will not 
down. The expenditure of fully $375,000,000 with no 
perceptible taint of graft is a victory in itself. There 
are exceedingly few of our great railroad corporations 



446 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

that can show as clean a record, and the fact some- 
what depreciates the hostiHty of some of their heads 
to the extension into their domain of the activities 
of the government. In urging this point no one can 
be bHnd to the fact that the Zone was governed and 
the Canal work directed by an autocrat. But the 
autocrat was directly subject to Congress and had 
to come to that body annually for his supplies of 
money. It was dug by the army, but no one now 
doubts that the navy could have done as well, and 
few will question that, with the Panama experience 
as a guide, a mixed commission of civilians and 
military and naval officers could efficiently direct 
any public work the nation might undertake. 



CHAPTER XIX 



THE CLOSING PHASES 



Early in the afternoon of October lo, 191 3, Presi- 
dent Wilson, standing in the White House, pressed a 
telegrapher's key. Straightway a spark sped along 
the wires to Galveston, Texas, thence by cable to the 
Canal Zone, and in an instant with a roar and a 
quaking of the earth, a section of the Gamboa Dyke, 
which from the beginning had barred the waters 
of Gatun Lake from the Culebra Cut, was blown 
away. The water rushed through, though not in 
such a torrent as sightseers had hoped for, since 
pumps, started on October i, had already filled the 
cut to within six feet of the level of the lake. But 
presently thereafter a native cayuca, and then a few 
light power boats sped through the narrow opening 
and there remained no obstacle to the passage of 
the canal by such light craft from ocean to ocean. 

By the destruction of the Gamboa Dyke on the 
day fixed, Col. Goethals fulfilled a promise he h*ad 
made long before to himself and to the people. It 
was on the loth of October, 1513, that Balboa 
strode thigh-deep into the Pacific Ocean, and, raising 

447 



448 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

on high the standard of Spain, claimed that sea 
and all lands abutting upon it for his sovereign. 
Not a foot of that land so grandiloquently claimed 
remains to Spain, and the Spanish flag is but seldom 
seen on the ocean which Balboa discovered. Just 
400 years after that discovery the United States 
thus celebrated one of the final steps by which the 
age-long hope of a strait between the two countries 
is at last fulfilled. The name of Goethals is linked 
with that of Balboa as firmly as though four centuries 
had not intervened between the lives of the two men. 
After the blasting away of the Gamboa Dyke 
events moved swiftly toward the completion of the 
canal. As step after step was taken the indomitable 
dislike of the chairman of the commission for any- 
thing like display or melodrama was increasingly 
manifested. September 26 the first vessel climbed 
the Gatun locks from the Atlantic level to Gatun 
Lake. The chairman did not make the historic 
passage. No band, no champagne, no speeches at- 
tended this first ascent to the lake on the upper level. 
The craft was a mere workaday tug, and the trip 
was made in the course of business. The oratorical 
De Lesseps would never have let so rare an oppor- 
tunity pass. But the formal opening of the canal, 
set for January i, 191 5, is the spectacular event for 
which Col. Goethals is dela3dng all pomp and cere- 
mony. Before then not merely the first ship, but 
many ships, will pass through the canal from end 



THE CLOSING PHASES 449 

to end. The historic first passage indeed is Hkely 
to be made without any notification to the public 
and merely in the course of the day's work. 

The renewed activity of the slides in the winter 
of 19 1 3-14 gave trouble to the engineers and anxiety 
to the American public which manifests its interest 
in the canal by discussing eagerly every occurrence 
that seems to menace its success. The malign Cuca- 
racha slides and slides, is still sliding as these pages 
go to press. The engineers look on composedly and 
enlarge their plans for removing the debris. Hostile 
critics, mostly of foreign habitat, sneer and declare 
the canal will never open. But in January, 19 14, a 
30-foot channel was open from ocean to ocean — deep 
enough to accommodate most of the ships that will 
make that voyage. And the dredges are still work- 
ing, shoveling in the dry, sucking in the wet, moving 
away the millions of tons of rock and gravel which 
nature keeps pouring down to heal the gash in the 
throat of the continent. Contractors Hill is being 
attacked on the side furthest from the ditch, and 
near its top, the idea being that the crest of the hill 
shall be dug away and the heavy pressure that 
forces the slides thus abated. 

Two typical stories of Col. Goethals show how 
he met the protests of nature against the liberties 
taken by man, and in due time his attitude became 
that of all the workers on the Zone. In 1908 it 
was reported that the great bulk of Gatun Dam, 



450 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

the very keystone of the canal arch, was sinking. 
The nation was alarmed, the War Department in a 
panic. President Roosevelt sent the then Secretary 
of War Taft, with a commission of engineers, to 
the Isthmus to investigate. Col. Goethals met 
them, calm, confident, unperturbed. 

"What are we going to do. Colonel?" asked Taft 
anxiously, "build a canal or not?" 

"I can build you a lock canal," placidly returned 
the colonel, "or I can build you a sea-level canal, 
whichever you prefer. If you don't want either, I 
can pack up and go home." 

Reassured, the Secretary decided that the emer- 
gency was not so great as he had thought and to-day 
the lock canal is built. 

In 191 3 the sinister Cucaracha slide was par- 
ticularly busy, and one day the colonel descended 
into Culebra Cut to find it blocked from side to 
side, and Col. Gaillard, who since died a martyr to 
the nervous strain of grappling with nature, looking 
on the scene of the disaster, the picture of gloom. 

"What are we going to do now?" anxiously 
asked Gaillard, greeting his chief. 

"Hell," responded Goethals, lighting a cigarette. 
"Dig it out again." 

And they still are digging. 

But while these last expiring protests of outraged 
nature engage the attention of a considerable body 
of men in Culebra Cut, the rest of the Zone is rap- 



THE CLOSING PHASES 451 

idly becoming depopulated. In December, 19 13, 
and January, 1914, nearly 20,000 workmen were 
shipped back to their West Indian homes. Long 
stretches of the canal are left solitary, unvexed by 
any except an occasional passing craft, for they are 
completed. Villages like Cascadas and Obispo have 
disappeared. Through the placid waters of Gatun 
Lake, threading the long aisle through the slowly 
dying forest, ply "sight-seeing" barges like the 
sight-seeing trains formerly used to carry the tourists 
to parts of interest. The canal has ceased to rely on 
the Panama Railway. It is its own highway — the 
wheel has given place to the screw. Only in Culebra 
Cut are the old-time clatter of machinery, and cries 
of the shovel men still heard as of yore. 

Late in October, 1913, two earthquake shocks, 
sufficiently vigorous to set crockery shaking in 
Colon and Panama and readily discernible all along 
the Zone, alarmed the American public for the 
safety of the canal. From the very start the earth- 
quake peril has been one of the unknown and malign 
factors to be reckoned with. Slight shocks are 
common, but only two in the days of modern his- 
tory, one in 1621 and one in 1882, were severe 
enough to destroy buildings, even the frail adobe 
structures of Panama. In an earlier chapter I 
have pointed out that the famous "fiat arch" in 
Panama City is looked upon as a monumental 
evidence of the immunity of the Isthmus frorn 



452 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

serious earthquake danger. But to quiet the ap- 
prehensions of the country at the time of the latest 
shocks, Dr. Donald F. MacDonald, the geologist 
of the Isthmian Canal Commission, issued a formal 
statement in which, after collecting all scientific 
data bearing on the subject, he summed up the earth- 
quake factor in the safety problem thus: 

"Over three hundred years of earthquake ob- 
servation shows only two shocks of any considerable 
magnitude, and there is every reason to believe 
that the severest of these would not have seriously 
damaged even the most delicate parts of the canal. 
That many small and harmless shocks will traverse 
the Canal Zone is certain, but that the canal is 
liable to be seriously damaged by earthquakes is 
contrary to all the evidence." 

The political problems of the canal seemed to 
multiply in the last days of its construction. More 
and more the nation seems to accept as inevitable 
the conclusion that it will accomplish little or 
nothing to the advantage to the American merchant 
marine. No American ships are building to take 
advantage of the canal as a factor in international 
trade. England, Germany, and France are all en- 
larging their present fleets to this end, and Japan 
has even begun the creation of a great round-the- 
world fleet that shall employ the Panama Canal 
as part of its route. We alone lag, seeing our great 
canal hailed with acclaim by other nations which 



THE CLOSING PHASES 453 

plan to use it, and are very insistent upon their 
right to do so at the same prices as will be charged 
to American ships. 

In the course of the discussion of the propriety 
of remitting the tolls upon American ships engaged 
in coast- wise traffic, a new argument was advanced 
when President Wilson made known his purpose of 
urging the repeal of the law. It was pointed out 
that one purpose of the construction of the canal 
was to provide a check upon transcontinental rail- 
road rates. The rate between any two points which 
can be reached by water is fixed by the cost of 
water carriage. Unless the railroads connecting 
the same point meet that rate they cannot get the 
business. For example, if a certain quantity of 
freight can be carried from New York to San Fran- 
cisco for $100 the transcontinental railroads will 
carry it likewise for $100. But if, because of the 
repeal of the law granting free transit of the canal 
to American coastwise ships, $10 is added to the 
cost of this shipment by water, the railroads will 
add $10 likewise to their rates. The actual cost of 
carriage to them will be in no way increased. The 
additional $10 will be a mere bonus enjoyed by them 
because the United States government has taxed 
their competitors that much and increased the cost 
of water carriage. 

Undoubtedly many sincere people earnestly be- 
lieve that adherence to the principle of free tolls 



454 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

for American coast-wise ships would be a violation 
of the spirit of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty and 
therefore a stain upon our national honor. About 
that there may be two opinions. But it is quite 
evident that the salvation of the national honor 
by taxing American ships will at the same time be 
the salvation of the transcontinental railway mo- 
nopoly from a competition which it had been hoped 
would be very effective in restraining extortion. 
As great interests have many ways of arousing 
and influencing public sentiment, the outcry set up 
after the free tolls law was enacted is readily ex- 
plained. Great Britain's part in the discussion, 
which was most heated at the time this volume 
went to press, seems to be rather that of a cat's-paw. 
The real complainants against the law are the 
railroads. 

In February, 19 13, there came from the Depart- 
ment of State guarded announcements that the 
negotiations with Colombia for a settlement of 
the injuries inflicted by President Roosevelt's 
seizure of the Canal Zone had reached a stage 
that promised an early agreement. Strangely 
enough, the same community which hailed with 
applause Col. Roosevelt's statement: "I took Pan- 
ama," is accepting with calm philosophy the propo- 
sition that the nation must now pay for the stolen 
goods. While the terms of the treaty in process 
of negotiation with Colombia have not been made 



THE CLOSING PHASES 455 

public, they are understood to comprehend a heavy- 
cash payment — $25,000,000 and $40,000,000 are the 
figures most generally hazarded, though in either 
case the estimate is pure guess work. A tentative 
suggestion was permitted to come indirectly from 
the State Department, possibly to test public senti- 
ment, that it might be thought wise to surrender 
Panama again to its old-time ruler Colombia. But 
public approval was swift in disapproval of this 
suggestion and it was speedily dropped. 

Aside from the natural promptings of a sense of 
justice which we hope is inherent in the American 
people, this determination to make reparation to 
Colombia was no doubt inspired by the discovery 
that our high-handed proceedings in Panama had 
awakened the resentment and distrust of other 
Latin American states. We had hoped that the 
canal would be the means of tying us more closely 
to the South American republics with commercial 
and political bonds, but, behold, our very first act 
was to rob one of those republics of its very richest 
province. The other Latin American states looked 
on aghast, and prepared to defend themselves against 
the colossus of the North. Col. Roosevelt, himself, 
making a tour of the South American capitals, had 
repeated evidences thrust upon him of the degree 
to which his procedure in Panama had awakened 
hostility in the more southern states. 

To overcome this hostility is the chief study 



456 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

now of far-seeing Americans. Prompt and honor- 
able reparation to Colombia is the necessary first 
step, and it will soon be taken. But the fact must 
be made clear that the United States is not looking 
southward with an eager eye for mere territory. 
The Monroe Doctrine must be expanded. Such 
nations as Brazil, Chile and the Argentine no longer 
need the guaranty of the United States against 
European aggression. They can protect themselves. 
But to extend the spirit of amity and good will 
in the Western continent it would be well if the 
United States would invite these nations to join 
it in advocacy of the Monroe Doctrine and in fur- 
nishing, under it, protection to the lesser nations, 
their neighbors. Time has wrought changes every- 
where, but nowhere so swiftly and so radically since 
the middle of the last century as in South America. 
We have new communities to deal with there, and 
the old paternal, patronizing, protective attitude 
of the United States must be abandoned forever. 

If the story of the building of the Panama Canal 
could not be kept in permanent form and studied 
intelligently for its lessons, it would be almost a 
pity that the canal is finished. For I think that 
quite as valuable to the nation as the facilities it 
will offer for the extension of trade, quite as worth 
while as its increase in our naval efficiency, is the 
object lesson it has given in what Americans can 
do if they tackle a problem all together and with 



THE CLOSING PHASES 457 

a keen determination to succeed. Before long there 
will come the inevitable reaction against the praise 
of the canal builders. We will be told that it was 
not such a great job after all. That its engineering 
problems were simple. That an English doctor 
told all about yellow fever and mosquitoes before 
Col. Gorgas ever dreamed of Panama. That the 
digging of the New York City aqueduct involved 
more perplexing engineering problems than the 
whole canal from Toro Point to Naos Island. That 
Goethals was not much of an engineer, only a good 
organizer — and so on, much of which is entirely 
true. 

Nevertheless, the Panama Canal enterprise had 
baffled human ability until the United States took 
it up. And in its steady progress toward completion 
some lessons have been taught in a way to fix them 
in men's memories, some truths, which ought to 
be self-evident but which have been often denied, 
have been emphasized beyond the chance of future 
denial. 

Perhaps its first and greatest lesson has been 
that the United States can do for itself, under 
direction of its own officers and without the interven- 
tion of any contractor or middleman, any construc- 
tive work, however difficult or however prodigious, 
do without graft or scandal, and in the end econom- 
ically when all the benefits sought are considered. 

It has taught its error to an unmilitary people, 



458 PANAMA AND THE CANAL 

who have held that West Point produced martinets, 
incapable of any usefiil service in time of peace 
and wedded to gold lace and military pomp. 

It has emphasized the lesson that labor is most 
efficient when well housed, well fed and well paid. 
In this respect the record of the Panama construc- 
tion work will be of great and increasing benefit to 
men who work for a wage in ages yet to come. 

It has proved that the filthiest of towns may be 
made clean and kept so, that the most pestilential 
of places with scientific care and watchfulness may 
be made as salubrious as a health resort. 

It has proved that, imder proper supervision, a 
heterogeneous community of 70,000 people, mostly 
young men, located adjacent to communities in 
which the American idea of morals and good order 
does not obtain may be so policed as to be kept 
clean, orderly, and law-abiding. 

To have taught these lessons, the application of 
which will presently become apparent in our home 
communities, would alone have justified the money 
and energy spent upon the Panama Canal. 

So with its completion at hand we see that its 
effects are to be manifold— domestic as well as 
foreign, moral as well as material, political as well 
as economic. If it be properly conducted in its 
completed state, managed and directed upon the 
broad principle that though paid for wholly by 
the United States it is to exist for the general good 



THE CLOSING PHASES 459 

of all mankind, it should be, in the ages to come, 
the greatest glory attached to the American flag. 
In abolishing human slavery we followed late in 
the procession of civilized nations. But in tearing 
away the most difficult barrier that nature has 
placed in the way of world-wide trade, acquaintance, 
friendship, and peace, we have done a service to 
the cause of universal progress and civilization the 
worth of which the passage of time will never dim. 



INDEX 



de Acosta, Fray Josef, 114 
Adamson Act, 444 
Administration, 405-428 
Administration Commission, 

191-192 
Agriculture, Department of, 11, 

404 
Alaska, 64, 445 
Alhajuela, 219, 227, 330 ' 
Almirante, 341 
Almirante Bay, 341 
Amador, Dr., 140 
American registry, 344, 426 
American ships, 426-427, 452- 

454 

Ancon, 9, 126, 196, 199, 203, 
205, 284, 317 

Ancon Hill, 125, 163 

Ancon Hospital, 318 

Annual expenses, 413 

Annual payments, 432-433 

Annual revolutions, 44 

Appropriation, 148, 409 

Appropriation, House Commit- 
tee on, 198 

Atlanta, 145 

Atlantic, 12, 62, 65, 69, 76, 123, 
216, 350, 373, 408, 409 

Atlantic Division, 204, 207 

Atlantic level, 448 

Area, 365, 422 

Asiatic Markets, 425 

Asiatic traffic, 422 

Aspinwall, 34 

"Aspinwall, John," 53 

Aspinwall, William H., 57 

Assouan Dam, 211 

Bachelor quarters, 367-368, 387 

Bahamas, 13, 18 

Balboa, 7, 40, 213, 264, 404, 427 

Balboa Hill, 71 

Balboa, Port of, 90, 108, 163, 
164, 167, 168, 263 

461 



de Balboa, Vasco Nunez, 70-76, 

100, 350, 447 
Banana trade development, 345- 

346 
Barracks, 387, 390-391 
Barrett, Hon. John, 11, 419 
Bas Obispo, 229, 230, 243, 450 
de Bastides, Roderigo, 66 
Battleship Oregon, 132 
Bayano River, 340, 346, 355 
"Beef Trust," 347 
Beyer, Walter J., 11 
Bishop, Hon. Joseph B., 11, 192 
Blackburn, Hon. J. C. S., 192 
Black Swamp, 59 
"Boca del Roosevelt," 227 
Bocas del Toro, 327, 329, 340, 

341, 343, 351 
Bogota, 57, 117, 118, 138, 139, 

146 
Bogotd Concession, 57 
Bohio, 208, 219 
Boinne, Henri, 125 
Boundary, 327, 365 
Brooke, Lieut., Mark, 148 
British Columbia, 424 
British East India Company, 115 
British Foreign Office, 414 
British registry, 344-345 
British West Indies, 22, 23 
Bryce, Ambassador James, 12 
Buccaneers, French and English, 

78,84 
Buenaventura, 142 
Buenos Ayres, 411 
Buildings, government, 287-289 
Bull-fighting, 103 
Bunau-Varilla, 125, 140, 146 
Buried Indian towns, 157 
Burtis, W. Ryall, 11 
Burr, William H., 171 
Caldera Valley, 347 
California, 8, 60 



462 



INDEX 



Camp Elliott, 9, 285 

Camp Otis, 9, 284 

Canada, 22, 23 

Canadian Railroads, 415 

Canal, Old French, 151 

Canal Commission (See Isthmian 
Canal Commission) 

Canal, lock (See Lock Canal) 

Canal, sea-level (See Sea-level 
canal) 

Canal tolls (see Tolls) 

Canal zone, 9-1 1, 13-15, 32, 34, 
38, 47, 51, 54, 71, 75, 109, 136, 
147, 150, 157, 160, 164, 183, 
186, 189, 191, 193, 197, 199, 
205, 206, 221, 227, 272, 282, 
284, 286, 308-326, 343, 348, 
365-386, 387-404, 408, 431, 
433, 436, 443-452, 454 

Cape Horn, Oregon's race around, 
132 

Caribbean Sea, 7, 22, 36, 47, 65, 
67, 150, 204, 207, 213, 365 

Caribs (See Cuna-Cuna) 

Carnival Season, 294-296 

Cartagena, 78, 79, 146 

Casa Reale, 1 1 

Castle Gloria, 83 

Castle of Triana, 84 

Cattle industry, 336, 347 

Central American negotiations, 

134 
Central American route, 133 
Central Division, 204, 219-262 
Chagres River, 8, 40, 43, 55, 60, 

65, 69, 77, 89-90, 92, 157, 209- 

212, 219-229, 330 
Chagres Valley, 209, 212, 213 
Chagres, Village of, 97 
Chauncy, Henry, 57 
Chiapes, 73 
Chicago, 12, 32, 53 
Chinese, 54, 57-59, 389, 425 
Chinese Wall, 149 
Chiriqui, 327, 328, 337, 347, 351 
Chiriqui Lagoon, 341 
Chiriqui Peak, 348 
Chiriqui Prison, 299-304 
Choco Indians, 358-361 
Chucunaque River, 340, 355 



Churches, 304-306 
Church work, 384-385 
Cimmaroons, 67, 80, 81, 84 
Classification of Estimated Net 

Tonnage, 423 
Classified expenditures, 438 
Clay, Henry, 56 
Clayton- Bui wer Treaty, 406 
Climate, 347 
Coal prices, 417-418 
Coast artillery, 408 
Code, 327, 329 
Cocura, 73 
Coffee industry, 348 
Colombia, 35, 61, 78, 1 18-120, 

132-135, 139, 142, 146, 327, 

350, 454, 456 
Colombia, reparation to, 431- 

434, 454-456 
Colombia, Republic of, 46, 118, 

135, 431-433 
Colombia, tentative offer to, 

433 
Colombia, Treaty negotiations, 

133, 135-136, 138, 454-455 
Colombian concession, 120 
Colombian gunboats, 144, 145 
Colon, 13, 16-18, 32, 34-44, 52- 
53, 60, 65-67, 84, 89, 128, 
137-138, 143, 147, 150-151, 
168, 180, 207, 264, 309-312, 
317, 325, 327, 340, 343, 404, 
436, 451 
Colquhoun, Archibald, 23 
Columbus, Christopher, 6-8, 18, 

20, 34, 40, 46, 66-68 
Columbus, Fernando, 68 
Comagre, 73 
Commerce with South America, 

434-435, 455 

Commission, Headquarters, 174- 
180 

Commission Hotels, 367, 388-3S9 

Commission, Inter-State Com- 
merce, 441-442 

Commission, United States 
Canal, 128 

Commission, Walker, 133 

Committee, Military Affairs, 51 

Concrete docks, 150 



INDEX 



463 



Concrete, quantity used, 149 
Constantinople conference, 430 
Contractors Hill, 129, 161, 230, 

249, 258, 449 
Cortez, 7, 8, 70, 113-114 
Costa Rica, 327 
Costs, estimated, 156, 164-165, 

186-187, 437-438 
Creoles, 117 
Cristobal, 5, 45, 46, 47, 52, 123, 

150, 164, 199, 207, 208, 213 
Cristobal-Colon, 34-64 
Cromwell, William Nelson, 135, 

139, 140, 147 
Cruces, 69, 82, 225, 227, 330-332 
Cuba, 15, 18, 20 
Cucaracha Slide, 235, 240, 449, 

450 
Culebra, 9, 45, 90, 161, 164, 203, 

205, 229, 376 
Culebra Cut, 10, 129, 149, 161, 

166, 170, 185, 193, 202, 204, 

210, 219, 230-265, 308, 447, 

450-451 
Culsbra Slide, 237 
Cuna-Cuna, 352, 355-356, 359 
Danisls, Captain, 88 
Darien, 115, 116, 346, 350-352. 

358, 362 
David, 336, 347 
Davis, Major General George 

W., 171 
Dead timber, 156 
Death rate, 310 
Defense, 405-410 
Deoopulation, 451 
Dickson, A. B., 1 1 
Dingier, Jules, 125 
Diplomatic Methods, 119, 134 
Discovery and Colonization, 65 
Discovery Pacific Ocean, 70-74, 

76, 447-448 
Dispensaries, 319 
Distance saved, 412, 418-421 
Division, Atlantic, 204, 207 
Division, Central, 204, 219-262 
Division, Pacific, 205, 262-263 
Dixie, 145 
Docks, 150 
Doracho-Changuina, 351 



Drainage, 49, 50 

Drake, Sir Francis, 67, 80-82 

Drinking water, 50 

Dry docks, provision for, 264 

Earthquake, 23, 31, 451-452 

Ecuador, 118 

Effect on Latin America, 431- 

436 
El Bouquette, 348 
"El Cerro de los Buccaneeros, " 

102 
Elliott, Stewart Hancock, 12 
Empire, 161 
Empire Slide,. 239 
Endicott, Mordecai T., 178 
Engineers, International Board 

of Advisory, 185-187, 209 
England (See Great Britain) 
England, King of, 108, 115, 116 
English piratical raids, 65, 78 
Ernst, Oswald H., 178 
Esquemeling, 85, 87, 88, 98, 100, 

102, 106, 107 
Estimated costs, 156, 164-165, 

186-187, 437-438 
Eugenie, Empress, 46 
European, first, 66 
European Spaniards, 117 
European war dogs, 71 
Excavations, 128, 129, 149-150, 

186, 230-231, 234, 241, 244, 

449 
Exemption clause, 414-417 
Expenditures, 127-130, i86, 437- 

438,445 
Expenses, annual, 413 
Fair days, 69 
Feeding problem, 388-389, 391- 

392 
First European, 66 
First landing place of Balboa, 70 
First through passage, 447-449 
Flamenco Island, 166, 408 
Floating Islands, 156 
Foreign ships, 425-427. 452-454 
Forests, 337 
Formal opening, 448 
Formal possession by United 

States, 148 
Fort Geronimo, 83 



■464 



INDEX 



Fort Lorenzo, 221 
Fortifications, 166, 204, 264, 

405-410 
France, 148, 452 
Franchise stipulation, 61 
Freight rates, 441-442, 453 
French, 44-46, 48, 49, 56, 61, 

I 13-130 
French, A. W., 12 
French Canal Company, 62, 124, 

I39> 147 
French Chamber of Deputies, 

130 
French excavation, 128, 129, 186 
French expenditures, 127-130, 

186 
French property 131-132 
French stockholders, 131, 148 
French subscription, 121 
French waterway, 123 
Gaillard, Major D. D., 192, 231, 

236, 237, 242, 251, 450 
Gamboa, 161, 219, 228 
Gamboa Dyke, 447-448 
Garden spot, 321 
Gateway to Pacific trade, 65 
Gatun, 59, 89, 151, 208-209, 

216, 219, 409 
Gatun Dam, 123, 188, 204, 207- 

218, 449-450 
Gatun Lake, 9, 59, 152, 154, 157, 

159, 204, 210-21 1, 219-229, 

230, 253, 365, 447-448, 451 
Gatun Locks, 90, 93, 152, 154, 

204, 207-218, 262, 448 
Gause, Professor Frank A., 1 1, 

400-401 
General advantages, 429-430 
German banks, 425 
Germany, 22, 426, 436, 452 
Goethals, Col. George W., lo, 51, 

63, 114, 164-166, 171-172, 

186-187, 192-206, 232, 234, 

235, 259, 261, 320, 372, 375- 

376, 384, 399, 402, 404, 410, 

437, 443-445, 447, 449-450, 

457 
Gold, 7, 8, 44, 57, 73, 79, 346- 

347 
Gold Hill, 129, 162, 230, 248, 258 



Gold seeking, 60, 71 

Gorgas, Col. W. C, 10, 32, 51, 

54, 126, 171, 173, I76> 177, 
' 179, 191-192, 241, 309-326, 

404, 428, 436, 443, 457 
Gorgona, 159, 160, 164, 376 
Government, 387-404, 44.3-446, 

458 
Government buildings, 287-289 
Government ownership, 372-375 
Governorship, 444 
Grant, Ulysses S., 134 
Great Britain, 15, 16, 406, 415, 

426, 430, 452, 454 
Guantanamo, 23 
Guaymies, 351, 361-363 
Gunsky, Carl Ewald, 171 
Hains, Peter C, 178 
Harrod, Benjamin M., 171, 178 
Hay-Herrara Treaty, 140 
Hay, John, 136, 141 
Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, 406, 

415, 454 ^ 

Headquarters Commission, 174- 
180 

Health outposts, 316-317 

Hecker, Frank J., 171 

Hill, James J., 183, 427 

Hodges, Lieut. -Col., 192 

Hospitals, 317-319 

House Committee on Appro- 
priations, 198 

Houses, type of, 376-379 

Housekeeping, 379-380 

Huertas, Gen., 144 

Hurricane, 60 

Iguana, 14 

Inaugurating Canal Work, 119 

Incas, 7 

India, 425 

Indian hut furnishings, 334 

Indian rights purchased, 158 

Indians, 70, 73, 75-76, 93, 102, 
117, 328-329,335, 350-364 

Influence on Commerce, 411- 
412, 452, 456 

International Board of Advisory 
Engineers, 185, 186, 187, 209 

International Congress, 186 

International question, 414-417 



INDEX 



465 



International Scientific Con- 
gress, 121 

Interstate Commerce Commis- 
sion, 441-442 

"Iron Castle," 83 

Isthmian Canal Commission, 11, 
15, 40, 67, 156, 163, 166, 171, 
178, 188, 191, 196, 223, 227, 
267, 317, 342-343, 346, 365- 
372, 376, 377-379, 383, 387, 
402-403, 438, 452 

Italy, 426 

Jamaica, 16, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 

27,59 
Jamaica Negro, 27-33 
Jamestown, 6, 65 
Japan, 426, 452 
Johnson, Professor Emory R., 

413, 417, 423 
Jungle, 57-59, 90-94 
Kmgston, 20, 23, 24, 25, 27, 31 
Laborers, 387-392, 45 1 
Labor problem, 174, 458 
"La Folie Dingier," 125 
Landsdowne, Lord, 406 
Land slides, 202, 230-242, 449- 

450 
Las Cascadas, 161, 451 
Latin-Americans, 277, 371, 431- 

436, 455 
Laundry work, 394, 396 
Length of the Canal, 149 
Leper hospital, 324 
de Lesseps, Ferdinand, 120, 121, 

129, 186, 437, 448 
de Lesseps Palace, 45-46 
Level, Atlantic, 448 
Level, Pacific, 154 
Level, sea (See Sea-level canal) 
Lima, 79 
Limon Bay, 35, 36, 123, 150, 

207, 408, 410 
Lincoln, Abraham, 193 
Liquor traffic, 297-299, 392-394 
Lock canal, 121, 130, 133, 173, 

184, 186-187, 209, 450 
Locks, danger to, 409, 410 
London Times, 22 
Lorenzo, Fort, 221 
Los Santos, 327 



Lottery, 270, 271 
Lutz, Professor Otto, 1 1 
Mac Donald, Dr. Donald P., 452 
Magoon, Charles E., 178, 182, 

184 
Malaria, 172 

Manzanilla Island, 41, 84 
Manzanilla Point, 66 
Margarita, 79 
Markets, 274-279, 425 
Married row, 369-370 
Martyr, Peter, 72 
Matachin, 59, 160, 164, 221, 

222, 244, 331 
Medical service, 319-320 
Mestizos, 327, 328 
Metcalf, Richard L., 192 
Miguel, life story of, 330-334 
Military Affairs Committee, 51 
Mirafiores, 154, 163, 167, 196, 

205, 262, 263, 365, 409 
Mobile force, 408-409 
Mongols, 328 
Monroe Doctrine, 430-431, 434, 

456 
Moral influence, 440 
Morgan, Sir Henry, 21, 40, 84- 

89, 96, 100, I0I-I08, no. III, 

168, 290 
Mosquitoes, 313, 315, 326, 457 
Mount Hope, cemetery, 5, 49, 

122-123 
McKinley, William, 133 
Naos Island, 166, 406, 408, 457 
Napoleonic Upheaval, 117 
Nashville, U. S. Cruiser, 142-144 
Natural products, 337-340 
Navigation laws, 427 
Navy, Secretary of, 143 
Negotiations with Central Amer- 
ica, 133, 134, 136, 138, 454-455 
Negotiations with Colombia, 133, 

135-136, 138, 454-455 
Negotiations with Nicaragua, 135 

Negroes, 117,328,390 

Net Tonnage (See Classification 

of Estimated Net Tonnage) 
Neutral territory, 407 
New Caledonia, 115 
New Granada, 56, 61, 79, 118 



466 



INDEX 



New Orleans, 14, 15, 343 

New York, 12, 13, 15, 17, 19, 43, 

124, 343, 457 

New York Police, 444-445 
Nicaragua route, 131, 133, 182 
de Nicuesa, Don Diego, 66 
Nombre de Dios, 40, 65-67, 77, 

80, 82-83, 215 
Object lesson, 436-437, 456-458 
Official delay, 177, 182 
Official Handbook, 187, 243, 

389 
Oldest European settlements, 65 
Old French Canal, 151 
Old Panama, 76, 104, 108, 109, 

113, 290 
Opening, formal, 448 
Oregon, race around Cape Horn, 

132 
Orenstein, Dr. A. J., 12 
Ownership, Government, 372- 

375 

Pacific, 12, 60, 62, 70-74, 76, 102, 
123, 213, 219, 229, 350, 365, 
373, 408, 409, 411, 435, 441, 
447-448 

Pacific Division, 205, 262-263 

Pacific level, 154 

Panama, 8, 12, 48, 61, 64, 66, 69, 
77-79, 87, 98-102, 104, 106, 
113, 117-119, 128, 134, 138, 
142, 144-147, 180-183, 188, 
223, 282, 327, 330, 340, 351, 

431, 433-434. 436, 455 
Panama-Ancon, 48 
Panama Canal, 8, 9, 12, 23, 61- 

63, 65, 108, 113, 120-123, 

125, 129, 131-134, 149-167, 
170, 174, 177, 181-182, 184, 
188, 195, 207, 211, 219, 229- 
230, 231-239, 260-264, 342- 
343, 365, 406-428, 433-437, 
452, 455, 456, 457-458 

Panama Canal Administration 

Commission, 191-192 
Panama Canal Zone (See Canal 

Zone) 
Panama, City of, 7, 89, 117, 137- 

138, 168, 230, 266-307, 309- 

312, 325, 451 



Panama, Isthmus of, 5-6, 8, 44- 
45,65,71,74,77,90, 101,117- 
118, 120, 123-126, 139, 142- 
219,310,417,450,451 
Panama Libre, 144 
Panama National Institute, 11 
Panama, Province of, 137, 445 
Panama Railroad, 8, 15, 34, 37, 
39, 41-42, 48, 50, 55, 59, 61- 
64, 119, 132, 138, 142, 151, 
179, 188, 198, 213, 222, 258, 
264, 365, 445, 451 
Panama, Republic of, 34, 40, 48, 
94, 108, 133-134, 146, 227, 
282, 286-287, 327-349, 365, 

433 
Panama Revolution, 144-146, 

431 
Panama Route, 133, 135, 417 
Panama Secession, 138, 139 
Panama, Straits of, 12 1 
Panama, Walls of, 289-294 
Panamanians, 279-286, 311, 330, 

364 
Pan-American Union, 1 1 
Panca, 73 

Paris, 121, 122, 123, 124, 130 
Parsons, William Barclay, 171 
Passage, first through, 447-449 
Passage through the completed 

canal, 150-167 
Patterson, William, 115 
Pavement, 50 
Payments, 124, 147, 170, 286, 

432, 433 
Pedrarias, 70, 74, 75, 100, 350 
Pedro Miguel, 154, 162, 204- 

205, 230, 261-262, 409 
Perico Island, 166, 408 
Peru, 70, 75, 76 
Philippines, 9, 69, 77 
Pilgrim Fathers, 72 
Pittier, Professor H., 1 1 
Pizarro, 7, 8, 75, 76, 77, 160 
Plymouth, 6, 7, 65 
Police force, 296-297, 398-399, 

409 
Police force. New York, 444-445 
Population, 327, 365-366, 371- 

372, 403, 422, 443 



INDEX 



467 



Port Antonio, 25 
Port Arthur, 167 
Port Royal, 21, 33, 88 
Porto Bello, 36, 40, 65-69, 76-78, 
82-84, 87, 104, 143, 150, 207, 

215 

Possession, formal, 148 

Public buildings, estimated cost, 

165 

Purchase price, 124, 134, 140, 
147, 148, 286, 432, 433 

Quarantine station, 427-428 

Quareque Indians, 72 

Quareque, Province of, "jz 

Race around Cape Horn, 132 

Railroad building, 59, 60 

Railroad dividends, 61 

Railroad fares, 61-62 

Railroad pool, 413 

Rangelights, 158, 159 

Reciprocal rights, 430 

Recognition Republic of Pana- 
ma, 146 

Red tape, 175, 181 

Registry, American, 344, 426 

Registry, British, 344-345 

Rentals, 273 

Reparation to Colombia, 431- 
434, 454-456 

Revolutionary Junta, 140, 142, 

143, 144 
Revolutions, 44, 1 13-130, 138, 

144-146, 431 
Riot of July 4, 1912, 283-285, 

299 
Robinson, Tracy, 45, 61 
Rock and dirt removed, extent 

of, 149 
Roosevelt, Theodore, 44, 119- 

120, 129, 133-134, 136, 139, 

141, 146, 170, 176, 178, 185, 

187, 189-191, 195, 203, 205, 

388, 398, 431-432, 434, 450, 

454-455 
Rousseau, H. H., 11, 192 
Route, Central America, 133 
Route, Nicaragua, 131, 133, 

182 
Route, Panama, 133, 135, 417 
Route, Shortest, 263-264 



Royal Mail Steam Packet, 15, 

36, 37, 50 
St. Augustine, Church of, T09 
St. Michael, Gulf of, 74 
Salaries, 396-398 
San Miguel, Gulf of, 72 
San Bias Indians, 55, 353-358, 

360 
Sanitation, 308-326 
Sanitation, Department of, 12, 

314, 319 
San Lorenzo, 65, 89, 94, loi, 106, 

107, 150 
Santa Maria, 75 
School system, 400-402 
Scotch charter, 115 
Scotch colonization, 11 4-1 17 
Screening system, 317 
Sea-level canal, 121, 130, 173, 

184, 186-187, 410, 450 
Servants, 380-382 
Sewage, 50, 443 

Ships, foreign, 425-427, 452, 454 
Shonts, Theodore, B., 178, 182, 

188-189 
Shortest route, 263-264 
Sibert, Major William L., 192 
Smith, Jackson, 192 
Social l&e, 365-386 
Son, 328, 329 
South America, 69, 70, 77, 430, 

455, 456 
Spain, 75, 77, 78, 117,448 
Spam, Kmg of, 74, 75, 79, loi, 

116, 289 
Spain, Philip II of, 1 13, 114 
Spain, Queen of, 20, 290 
Spaniards, 68, 70-71, 81, 84, 86- 

88, 94-95, 98-99, 101-104, 

109-110, 114, 117, 389 
Spanish-American War, 132 
Spanish Strongholds, 65-112 
Spillway, 212, 213 
Spooner Act, 134, 170 
Spooner, Senator John C, 134 
Standing Army, 204 
State, Department of, 35, 146, 

433, 454—455 
Stevens, John F., 172, 184-191, 

194,195,389 



468 



INDEX 



Stevens, John L., 57 
Stimson, Hon. Henry L., 10, 408 
Strait to the Indies, 66 
Street Hfe, 306-307 
Subsistence Department, 184,394 
Suez Canal, 12, 120, 122, 164, 

417, 423, 427, 430 
Swamp, 57-59, 386 
Taboga, 322-324 
Taft, WiUiam Howard, 181, 183, 

189, 195, 432, 450 
Tariff poUcy, 22 

Tentative offer to Colombia, 433 
Terra Firma, 117 
Thatcher, Hon. Maurice H., 11, 

192 
Through the completed Canal, 

150-167 
Tolls, 413-418, 429, 433, 453 
Tonnage, 413 
Tonnage, Classified, 423 
Toro Point, 36, 51, 207, 213, 

406, 410, 457 
Toro Point Breakwater, 150 
Torres, Col., 145 
Traffic, 41 1-4 12, 422, 452 
Transcontinental rates, 412-413, 

453 
Trans-Isthmian Railroad, 56-62, 

454 
Treaty, Clayton-Bulwer, 406 
Treaty, Hay-Herraro, 140 
Treaty, Hay-Pauncefote, 406, 

415, 454 
Treaty, New Granada, 118 
Treaty, Republic of Panama, 

146-147, 286, 296, 319 
Tumaco, 73 
Turr, Gen. Stephen, 120 



Tuyra River, 340, 347 

United Fruit Company, 15, 329, 
337, 340-346 

United States, 8, 15, 22-23, 27, 
34, 62, 64, 93, 109, 113, 118- 
121, 130, 131-169, 406-407, 
411-412, 414, 416, 418, 424, 
428, 430-433, 435-436, 445, 
448, 456-457 

United States Army, 443, 446 

United States Canal Commis- 
sion, 128 

United States Congress, 134, 
148, 178-179, 204, 392, 409, 
414, 417, 428, 432, 446 

United States Navy, 410, 446, 
456 

Vacations, 320-321 

Venezuela, 79, 118 

Veragua, 327, 351 

Walker, Admiral John G., 171 

Walker Commission, 133 

Wallace, John F., 1 71-184, 190, 
191 

War, Department of, 10, 166, 
408, 450 

Washington, 130, 136, 139, 140, 
146, 179, 189, 191, 194, 196, 
231 

Wasteful expenditures, 127, 128 

Wilson, Woodrow, 192, 444, 447, 

453 
Women's Clubs, 382-383 
Wyse, Lieut. Napoleon B., 120 
Yellow fever, 124-127, 172-173, 

179, 181, 308-312, 314-315, 

317-318, 427, 457 
Y. M. C. A., II, 47, 160, 164, 

169, 233, 238, 383-384, 387 



3kll-2 



